Elenamary

Dammit, I am bitter.

You may recall that I wrote about the Kos convention and how white and elitist it was? In the end I ended up going to Chicago the weekend of the convention, unfortunately I was so completely disorganized that I didn’t get to meet with as many bloggers as I liked.  Additionally, one of my complaints was who exactly were the Latinos that were going to be at the convention.  Well, now I know that not only were there some there, other than of course Liza of Culture Kitchen,  but so was for example The Unapologetic Mexican, and he mentioned a Latino Caucus at the Kos convention. A Latino Caucus?  I have a book with the scheduled events from the Kos convention that a friend gave to me, but I didn’t open it this past weekend and I don’t think I will.  I won’t open it because it will only list more things that I missed out on.

I am bitter because I was there and yet didn’t get to participate in the convention.  Bitter because there were good presenters, bitter because all the democratic candidates with the exception of Biden showed up and spoke, bitter because although I am not a fan of Wesley Clark I still would’ve enjoyed hearing him speak.  The whole weekend I felt like a child locked out of a candy store.  I could see the kinds inside devouring the candy some of them not even enjoying their gluttony, and all I wanted was a teeny-tiny taste of it, any of it.

Oh the saddness.  The next best thing would be to be able to go to the democratic national convention, if anyone knows how I can get in please let me know.

(Thank you to Irasali’s husband who tipped me off).

SHEETROCK® Brand drywall is currently hosting a contest in Chicago: El Mero Mero Drywalero.

El Mero Mero: The one, The Magnificent, the very best and only; a pure Mexican idiom.

Drywalero: One may argue a “pochismo” — a water downed Mexican-Americanism, but I wouldn’t call it a pochismo. I would call it a Mexicanism made by the immigrant because there is no word for el drywalero. It is a term of necessity and acquisition, rather than a pochoizing of an English word for one that already exists in Spanish.

This all reminds me of a translation of a document I did. The document was for housing code violations and what needed to be fixed. The problem was that the words I was translating were words that the “Spanish reader” knew in English not in Spanish. For example wafer board, dry wall, oriented strand board, and plywood while some of the words may exist in Spanish (though for the most part not) they are words that are generally not encountered until el imigrante gets to the United States and works in construction. Anyway, I love the idea of a competition of El Mero Mero Drywalero almost has much as I love the title of it.