classes

So far, my first week of class has gone really well, and seems to be a perfect fit for my major. I am taking two spanish classes, Intellectual History and Cultural Representation, Mexican Revolution and the Novel, and Mexican History and the Construction of a Nation. Although I have two hours of spanish class five days a week, which is a lot considering that I´m basically in spanish class 24 hours a day, I´m actually really excited for what I will be learning. My teacher, Carolina, seems to be fantastic and understanding, and is great at explaining things. My classes are an advanced level of spanish, so we get to learn and review things other than verb tenses. Today in one of my classes we even went over the origins of Mexican Spanish and a lot of slang, including curse words. Here, curse words actually have a historical context, going back to colonization. I´m sure a lot of you already know the story of la Malinche, but for those of you who don´t: la Malinche was an indigenous Mexican woman who was the mistress and translator of Hernan Cortes. Their son is considered the first Mestizo. Although she is increasingly seen in conflicting lights, she is traditionally considered a traitor, someone who greatly assisted the conquest of ¨New World.¨ In Mexico, and throughout many Spanish speaking places, there are about three million variations of the word la chinga, which means the violated one (as in la Malinche). In a few cases, it can mean something good, but for the majority of the time it is a pejorative term. Something that is really interesting (to think about in a colonial context) that Octavio Paz wrote about was that in Spain, people say ¨hijo de puta,¨ while in Mexico, peope say "hijo de la chingada.¨ Hijo de puta means son of a bitch, or whore, and suggests someone who gave themsleves voluntarily. In contrast, hijo de la chingada means someone who is forced.