I should have known from the start that the wedding would be a success. I was too quick to doubt the power of such an event to unite people across physical, social, cultural, and linguistic barriers. And perhaps, too, I doubted the desire of my family and my in-laws to meet and communicate with each […]
Continue ReadingI had a dream. It was a grandiose dream featuring a pristine line of little tollbooths spanning a highway 25 lanes wide. Hundreds of cars were waiting patiently, equally distributed among the 25 lanes. There was traffic, but it moved steadily. As each car approached the little tollbooth, it pushed a button and the stop […]
Continue ReadingMexican cuisine is not for the weak at heart. Any food genre that is capable of making your throat, mouth, and lips burn for extended periods, invoking fits of hiccoughs, and wreaking havoc on stomachs, should not be taken lightly. Learning to eat Mexican is about adapting to change–slowly. The first change is adapting to […]
Continue ReadingI do not claim to be half as interesting as John Malkovich, but after my experiences in moving to Mexico, I may be just as bizarre. I have been through a remarkable number of changes in a period of about 10 months. Some days I think I’ve weathered the storm with grace and even start […]
Continue ReadingMexican men, like the rest of the world, get their ideas about American women from watching talk shows, soap operas, and movies. Therefore, they think we are terribly easy, unfaithful, and willing to hop into bed with any man who comes along. We all get divorced, none of us want children, and in general, we […]
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Flowers and flower arranging have played an important role in Mexico from ancient times to the present. The symbolic meaning of flowers is prominent throughout ancient Mesoamerican thought and practice. Flowers could represent anything from beauty and creation to death and destruction. Tlacaelel, a councilor to Moctezuma I (1440-1469), initiated a mystical warrior vision of […]
Continue ReadingI saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I thought, how different could a Mexican-American wedding be? Well, while there are many, many similarities, I overlooked the fact that my wedding is being held in a different country and in a different language. At least in the movie everyone is still in the United States, […]
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Whether you live in Oaxaca or vacation here on a regular basis, if you’ve begun to integrate into the community, eventually you’ll be asked to be a padrino or madrina (godparent) to an ahijado or ahijada (godchild), so you’d better familiarize yourself with “compadrazgo,” or co-godparenthood. In a nutshell, it’s a web of mutual rights and obligations of monumental importance throughout Mexico and […]
Continue Reading“What works here ought to work in Mexico.” Not so. You cannot transplant Canadian or US techniques, methods and management styles without adapting them and expect them to work successfully. “What is new and modern is the most effective.” What is new and effective in one environment, will not automatically work in a different culture […]
Continue ReadingBecause I volunteer a few days each month as a Mexican genealogical consultant at the Los Angeles Family History Center, many people have asked me for assistance in tracing their indigenous roots in Mexico. For three hundred years, Mexico was blessed with an exceptional record-keeping system. For the most part, Spanish padres in the small […]
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