Word: spanishness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...long this boom-and-bust cycle has been operating, no one really knows. Finding out might seem to be a hopeless task, considering that the phenomenon was discovered only about a century ago by Peruvian fishermen. (It was they who called it El Nino, the Spanish name for the Christ child whose December birthday marks its peak.) But last fall, Columbia University oceanographer Richard Fairbanks was floating in the equatorial Pacific gathering data that could tell researchers about El Ninos going back thousands of years. Working aboard the research vessel Moana Wave, Fairbanks spent weeks at El Nino's very...
This September I boarded a plane that sped me across the Atlantic, far from the shores of the U.S.A., and I didn't look back once. I landed on Spanish soil prepared to be enchanted by absolutely everything, and enchanted I was. There were orange trees lining the streets and bottles of red wine at every meal. The country closed down from two to five daily as everyone went home for a leisurely midday meal. The nightlife didn't get underway until midnight, and the streets were choked with party-goers until the wee hours of the morning...
Needless to say, few settings could have been more different from my Harvard existence. The Puritan work ethic, half-hour lunch and drinking age seemed designed specifically to make me miserable. But despite my readiness to apply for Spanish citizenship, there was something I missed. Not apple pie or cheap gas, but the multi-colored, multi-ethnic world I call home...
...United States is not an integrated oasis on the world map. But between growing up in Los Angeles and being at Harvard, my universe has been populated by people of a variety of shades and colors, from a wide range of religions and upbringings. The Spanish are much more homogenous. The vast majority can trace their ancestry back many centuries on the Iberian peninsula. Catholicism is integral to their culture and has been for ages. There are regional variations in cuisine, language and traditions but it is not the type of diversity that surrounds us here...
...alone can be an indicator of the variety of a place. It's not that there aren't common names in this country; my name alone claims an unruly percentage of each entering class at Harvard. But names come from a family's history, religion and culture, and the Spanish are all choosing from the same pot. Here, high school rosters present a daunting challenge to wide-eyed substitutes preparing to call the role. Names are a sign of the melting pot, salad bowl or what-have...