Mosaics



Photo by Tom Magliery

 Mosaics are an interesting concept: they are composed of small pieces, which individually have their own allure, but placed strategically together, they make up beautiful shapes. I can’t help thinking that mosaics are a symbol of life: compositions of moments, people and places, each piece special and essential in the aesthetics of the final masterpiece.
Lately, I have been talking to a lot of my Latin friends about their experiences dating Americans. It seems they all have the same –or at least very similar—issues regarding cultural differences. I thought this would be a good topic to write about because it is a clear reflection of how the small pieces that make us who we are, play a big role in how we interact with the people that surround us. With regard to how this relates to Life at Trinity, I thought it would be interesting to write about how people of similar interests, that live in the same environment, may have so much in common and yet have great difficulty understanding each other.


Foto by Maria José Treviño

 Before coming to Trinity I had never given interculturality so much thought. To me it was all about “respect”. In order to be respected, you must show others respect for their beliefs and culture, but as I have come to learn it is far from being that simple. While interactions may essentially be rooted on respect, they also have a lot to do with understanding and knowing what motivates people to act one way or another. In other words, how each small piece of a person’s life-mosaic influences the final shape and makes that mosaic different from one’s own.
Culturally, the approaches to dating and even friendship differ between Latin-Americans and US Americans. To us, guys should always pursue girls, this is what we are told by our parents and what we grow up experiencing. Here however, girls are a lot more forward in approaching guys and are equal participants in the process of pursuit. So how do we forget about these tabbus in order to understand and simply enjoy each other’s company? Well we can’t. But while forgetting or ignoring is not an option, we can learn to the mindful of the differences.
A year ago I probably would not have thought of these differences as anything other than incongruencies between other’s and myself, and I would have probably disregarded the relationship altogether. However, now that I understand that the terms intercultural and multicultural are more than just words and have a deep and important meaning, I find myself acknowledging how important our day to day experiences have been to making up how we face the world.
It is ultimately a unique opportunity we have to come and encounter people of such a varied array of backgrounds. As students we are able to find common ground with people who we otherwise may not have even had the opportunity to meet. Living in close proximity with each other, it becomes impossible not to appreciate how unique and interesting each other’s life experiences are.


Mosaic by Maria T is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

International TU

Have you ever stopped to think about all the multicultural activities and interactions you encounter every day at Trinity? For a day, try to be mindful of how your activities reflect the convergence of nationalities, backgrounds and even globalization.
Every morning students wake up to the "magical" sounds of their alarm clock. Whether it be a celphone made in China, designed in Germany and sold by --the french franchise-- Target in Texas, that composition of plastic and metal is a symbol of our proximity to all the people and places involved in its manufacturing process.

Photos taken by Stephanie Avalos or her camera

Then most of us proceed to shower employing products of foreign design and local redistribution; followed by a change of clothes into a mix of brands, places and fabrics, all of which we merge together in order to express our global selves. Think about it next time you are walking around upper campus heading to class. Look around and think about the harmonious --and at times not so harmonious-- combination of places, styles and colors all in one same frame. Fashion allows us to become art in motion, and regardless of how many places and brands we combine we can achieve great visual harmony.
Then as we make our way to breakfast we go into Mabee and we see the same familiar faces waiting to assist us in the acquisition of our products. At the breakfast taco stand is Rosie who is from Germany but has lived in San Antonio for the greater part of her life. On the other corner is the Sushi stand, which has three Korean girls working for about three hours to make enough sushi for the rest of the day. Every once in a while they will make the "syncretic" California roll topped with Chipotle Spicy Mayonnaise. Straight ahead is the pasta stand, originally Italian, but at Maybee it has lots all cultural affiliation. To the right is the Home Zone, which in principle serves home-cooked-style meals, but I have yet to see anything being served there that resembles what a home-cooked meal is like at my home. But enough about food.

After breakfast students travel to upper campus and encounter other students, some from Texas, others from other states, some even from Ecuador ;). We all come from such a varied array of places and experiences. Every moment of our day somehow interrelates us to people and places we have never met or ever seen. This makes a world of difference to me and the way I perceive my life here at Trinity.


International TU picture by Stephanie A is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.