Antonio and Delfino #2

As a read about the Moran brothers I felt as if the author had been there living with them. His attention to detail makes the stories very believable. Velvet paintings of matadors were in our living room when I was a child in the 70's. The story of the Moran brothers made me want to go out and buy some velvet paintings and put them up in my house today. I have seen those street artisans in Mexico during my travels and the stories of the velvet artists demonstrated to me the wonton abuse of the Mexican people by American entreprenuers and consumers. If we,the consumers, heard stories like this more often, we might reconsider our wreckless spending to fulfill selfish wants. I believe that the Moran brothers demonstrate what money can do to people and the problems that it causes. Don't take this condemnation of consumer want, to be an excuse for the artists' failure to make wise money decisions. However, they were surviving on what they were making before the boom and, based on my knowledge of the street artisans, would have been much happier doing that than the life of a person chasing money for happiness. The story of Diez is interesting in that I have known people who have used coyotes to get here. I've had students tell me their own "coyote stories" and they mirror Diez's story. The average coyote charges 2000 dollars per attempt not per success, thus some people come here with nothing, not due to robbery but due to the fees for crossing. I once saw a boy in Nuevo Laredo swim the river and sit on the US side of the river until the Broder Patrol came. Then he swam back to the Mexican side of the river. When I asked a Mexican friend why the boy did this he told me that the boy was a distraction and that a crossing was occuring at the same time somewhere else along the river. If the story of Diez interests you, you may want to read Jorge Ramos's book Dying to Cross or Ruben Martinez's Crossing Over a Mexican Migrant Tale.
The cultural differences introduced through the velvet paintings bring to mind the idea of how to deal with those diffences in the ESL classroom. My view of cultural differences is that from Day 1 in my class I always explain to my students that we all have a culture. Differences in culture don't make one culture or person wrong just different. We all make decisions based on our cultural and moral experiences. The decisions of others are based on their experiences. Those differences in experience should not be judged on our experiences but appreciated for their difference to ours. This doesn't mean that you can't disagree but you shouldn't judge them as wrong.