{"id":1916,"date":"2011-10-13T17:18:48","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T21:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2011-10-13T17:18:48","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T21:18:48","slug":"three-years-and-counting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/13\/three-years-and-counting\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Years and Counting…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>It was August, 2008 when I posted one of my first blog entries, a video of an interview between CBS’s Harry Smith and Henry Cejudo<\/a> , a recent Olympic gold medal winner in free-style wrestling.\u00a0 I was so moved by this account of the young Latino, a son of undocumented immigrants, and his love for his country –the United States of America, that I posted the video with no comments of my own.\u00a0 The image of this young man proudly wrapping himself in the Stars and Stripes seemed to say it all.<\/p>\n

That posting was one of my first efforts to challenge the cruel stereotypes often put forth by the Anglo-American community that can at times be quite insensitive.<\/p>\n

About three years ago, at age 60, I started teaching a beginning level ESL (English as Second Language) class.\u00a0 It is possible to teach English to a Spanish-speaking student without knowing his or her first language.\u00a0 Many have learned English that way.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless,\u00a0 I wanted to know how difficult it\u00a0 is\u00a0 to learn a second language as an adult.\u00a0 So I began learning Spanish.\u00a0 While my progress in my second language has been good, I have to tell you that it takes a lot of effort.<\/p>\n

Yet I can honestly say that this\u00a0 has proved to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my adult life. The Latino community continues to grow in my city, and there are many opportunities to practice my <\/em>second language.\u00a0 We also have a variety of Latin American restaurants and I enjoy ordering my meals in Spanish (which is probably more confusing to my bilingual servers than if I spoke English).<\/p>\n

When you learn a language, you begin to learn a culture.\u00a0 Whether Colombian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Argentinean, Central American\u00a0 or Mexican, my Latino friends are warm and hospitable.\u00a0 They know how to celebrate God’s blessings, great or small.<\/p>\n

To me they are not a they<\/em>, but an attractive part of a larger we<\/em> — all of God’s children.<\/p>\n

Many of my Anglo counterparts are clearly threatened by different cultures and languages.\u00a0 Far too often, they are prone to racist statements that are reminiscent of the slurs against the African-American families of past decades.\u00a0 And for many, there is the desire to somehow dismiss them as unworthy of our respect.<\/p>\n

It’s not enough for our country to be a country of laws.\u00a0 The time is long overdue for us to be a people of heart.<\/p>\n

 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was August, 2008 when I posted one of my first blog entries, a video of an interview between CBS’s Harry Smith and Henry Cejudo , a recent Olympic gold medal winner in free-style wrestling.\u00a0 I was so moved by …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-perspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}