-I do well in Spanish, but I find that I often feel I do poorly speaking in class b/c of lack of confidence & concentration. And I get nervous, especially when speaking in foreign language. But I have made a relationship with the professor, and have gotten good grades.
The theme for the entire class this semester is immigration, which frankly I find to be boring after a while.. basically before every single class (for hw) we have to watch different movies about illegal immigration then discuss/write papers. I find that these movies tend to be always about the saintly immigrant separated from their child, discriminated against by evil Americans, Spaniards , etc.
Yesterday a group presented about a movie we watched & divided the class into discussion groups. A presenter was in each group. we were mostly supposed to discuss very controversial quotes by saying we agree or no. Most were like "our system is immoral and exploits immigrants without giving them the protection of our laws" . One quote was a brief history of America -'first they screwed the indians, then the slaves, and now they're screwing us Mexicans!"
We were asked if we agreed/disagreed; I said I didn't agree b/c the situation with the Native Americans was different than the issue of illegal immigration today. The group presenter got extremely hostile and started saying "why?" and I said something like "well they were here first in that case" and he's like "what about texas etc that WAS theirs??" or something (saying that because certain parts of US used to be Mexico, it belongs to them technically).
So to avoid an argument I quickly said "no I am saying there have been injustices but the situations are different" and he immediately wrote on our poster board "injustices against mexicans, slaves, and indians, but different" when I said anything to agree with him. He was treating me like I was a total bigot. This was all in Spanish so I couldn't communicate as effectively (as him, being that he's already a Spanish speaker and yet takes intermediate level Spanish for English speakers)
After that he was pretty rash with me--he speaks fluently and quickly & I didn't understand what he was telling me to write on the board, so when I asked for the second time, he repeated it extremely snobbily , slowly, like I was an idiot.
Then later for their presentation they played a mexican song that said "we are more american than any gringo...we need to take back texas, wyoming, colorado, arizona, etc". I was like is this a joke? But it was totally serious.
Anyways the situation was very humiliating. I don't hate immigrants (my boyfriend is an immigrant) but I'm not for complete amnesty either. I'm in between. I just don't understand the notion that is in our class movies, discussions that anyone who wants to come here should be able to get a visa/citizenship with no questions asked. I just don't understnad why my Spanish class, which is supposed to be a place to learn about language and culture, is virtually no more than an extreme political arena where any other opinion is shot down. I'd love to learn about hispanic culture, the spanish language, food, whatever. Illegal immigration is okay to discuss one class maybe, but the entire semester gets ridiculous.
I really don't want to go back there---the class is "conversational" so you get marked down if you don't participate. I was trying to participate (for once lol), but just don't think the extreme politics are a realistic resolution to the situation going on right now by the border.
I find the class to be really biased.
The theme for the entire class this semester is immigration, which frankly I find to be boring after a while.. basically before every single class (for hw) we have to watch different movies about illegal immigration then discuss/write papers. I find that these movies tend to be always about the saintly immigrant separated from their child, discriminated against by evil Americans, Spaniards , etc.
Yesterday a group presented about a movie we watched & divided the class into discussion groups. A presenter was in each group. we were mostly supposed to discuss very controversial quotes by saying we agree or no. Most were like "our system is immoral and exploits immigrants without giving them the protection of our laws" . One quote was a brief history of America -'first they screwed the indians, then the slaves, and now they're screwing us Mexicans!"
We were asked if we agreed/disagreed; I said I didn't agree b/c the situation with the Native Americans was different than the issue of illegal immigration today. The group presenter got extremely hostile and started saying "why?" and I said something like "well they were here first in that case" and he's like "what about texas etc that WAS theirs??" or something (saying that because certain parts of US used to be Mexico, it belongs to them technically).
So to avoid an argument I quickly said "no I am saying there have been injustices but the situations are different" and he immediately wrote on our poster board "injustices against mexicans, slaves, and indians, but different" when I said anything to agree with him. He was treating me like I was a total bigot. This was all in Spanish so I couldn't communicate as effectively (as him, being that he's already a Spanish speaker and yet takes intermediate level Spanish for English speakers)
After that he was pretty rash with me--he speaks fluently and quickly & I didn't understand what he was telling me to write on the board, so when I asked for the second time, he repeated it extremely snobbily , slowly, like I was an idiot.
Then later for their presentation they played a mexican song that said "we are more american than any gringo...we need to take back texas, wyoming, colorado, arizona, etc". I was like is this a joke? But it was totally serious.
Anyways the situation was very humiliating. I don't hate immigrants (my boyfriend is an immigrant) but I'm not for complete amnesty either. I'm in between. I just don't understand the notion that is in our class movies, discussions that anyone who wants to come here should be able to get a visa/citizenship with no questions asked. I just don't understnad why my Spanish class, which is supposed to be a place to learn about language and culture, is virtually no more than an extreme political arena where any other opinion is shot down. I'd love to learn about hispanic culture, the spanish language, food, whatever. Illegal immigration is okay to discuss one class maybe, but the entire semester gets ridiculous.
I really don't want to go back there---the class is "conversational" so you get marked down if you don't participate. I was trying to participate (for once lol), but just don't think the extreme politics are a realistic resolution to the situation going on right now by the border.
I find the class to be really biased.
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