Author: David Diego Rodríguez, Ph.D.

I teach Spanish and I am a standup comedian.

Mexican stereotype


Mariachi Sponge Bob by Burger King

When Americans think of Mexicans, one of the most prominent images that comes to mind is the Mariachi. There’s nothing wrong with that since the Mariachi does have positive connotations and reflects favorably on Mexicans. The Mariachi has become the epitome of Mexico even though Mariachis originated in the state of Jalisco.

There are many more cultural facets to Mexico than just the Mariachis. As further proof, think of Hollywood movies that depict Mexicans. Okay, please try to block out Beverly Hills Chihuahua because it’s not representative of all Mexicans. I haven’t actually seen the entire movie, so I’m not qualified to comment on it. Okay, I did see the previews where they showed the Chihuahuas as advanced civilization similar to the Aztecs. When Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short made the movie The Three Amigos, they dressed like Mariachis. I once took my sons to Burger King and the toy in the Kid’s Meal was a Mariachi Sponge Bob. I often take Mariachi Sponge Bob to Spanish classes with me and the students love him so much I make I keep my eye on him so no one steals him from me.

DDR

Familia


Whenever I think of familia, I think of the difference between my Mexican family here in the U.S. and my Mexican family in Mexico. Every time I visit Mexico, I’m reminded of those differences. For example, when I return to Chicago and I relate experiences from my trip to Mexico, people are surprised that families having much closer ties and see each other more often. My brother Danny said he preferred his privacy. Of course, I only see him two or three times a year. Mexicans in Chicago become very Americanized after living here for any period of time. I, on the other hand, enjoyed spending time with mi familia. I try to go to every family event here in Chicago. But I really wish we could get together more often. So I love going to Mexico because everyone really enjoys each other’s company. And they express genuine interest in each other. When I’m in Mexico, everyone hears that I’m there visiting and mi familia makes every effort to come visit me, even if just for an hour or two. I never talk as much here as I do in Mexico because everyone is curious about me and my life in the U.S. I mean, no one pays that much attention to me here in Chicago!

DDR

Teaching


World History with Mr. Gibson, Divine Heart Seminary, Donaldson, Indiana

I’m still undecided on whether or not I like teaching. On good days, teaching doesn’t even feel like a chore and I truly enjoy interacting with the students. On bad days, I look at the bright side of things: At least no one shot at me! But I shouldn’t get so dramatic. But that’s one of the reasons I never wanted to teach in the Chicago Public Schools.

I chose to teach college and university students because I would rather deal with adults. All the students are at least eighteen years old. University students have the responsibility to study and do their homework. If they fail the course, it’s their fault for not having studied enough and doing all the required homework.

Actually, I like interacting with the students. We really have fun discussing a wide variety of topics, probably because they’re nowhere to be found on the syllabus. I do go off on a tangent sometimes in the classroom, but then I remember to somehow incorporate something from the Spanish lesson into conversation. And even though I stray from the lesson from time to time, I still manage to teach everything that’s listed on the syllabus in a way that keeps the students entertained while they learn Spanish.

What I do hate about teaching is all the bureaucracy. I hate doing all the paperwork involved. It’s bad enough I have a lot of homework to correct, but then I have to record all the grades and answer to my bureaucratic superiors.

DDR

Pop


My father Diego, 2509 W. Marquette Road, Chicago, Illinois 60629

Pop. Just Pop. That’s what I call my father now. My brother Jerry’s children who are half Irish call him Papa Diego. I still call him Pop because when I was little we only spoke Spanish at home and my parents were mami and papi. When you’re very little, say up to about five or six years old, calling your parents mami and papi is still acceptable. When I started playing at the Davis Square Park, other kids called me baby if they heard me call my parents mami and papi. So, eventually I began calling them Mom and Pop. Definitely more acceptable by my peers of preteens. But I could never write pap because everyone would mispronounce in English. So that’s how he became Pop, just plain Pop.

I remember, once when I was at the park, Bobby–I never did learn his real last name–started a fight with me. I must have been about six at the time. I still had not learned the protocol that if someone hit you, you must hit them right back, or they would forever pick on you. Bobby punched my face and I ran home crying. I got home quickly because we lived right across the street from the park at 4501 S. Hermitage Avenue. Both my mami and papi were home. My father was somewhere in the apartment; how someone could disappear from his family in a four-room apartment is beyond me. Anyway, my mother wanted to know why I was crying. I said, “Bobby hit me!” but in Spanish. “¡Bobby me pegó! My mother thought I had said papi hit me. My mother immediately began scolding my father–who was forced to come out of hiding.

It actually took a couple minutes for me clear up the confusion and prove my father’s innocence to my mother. My father took me to the park to look for Bobby, but he had left. Somebody was probably trying to beat him up for some prior transgression. As I would learn later–mainly because Bobby was always in my life no matter how I tried to avoid him–no one liked Bobby because he was an all-round  troublemaker. Once someone tried to shoot him, but they missed him and shot the person sitting next to him on the park bench. Luckily, the bullet went through the fleshy part of his thigh. Everyone was troubled by the fact that such an act of violence had failed to restore peace to our neighborhood by ridding everyone of Bobby for good.

But back to my father. Pop. When I started calling him Pop, no one made fun of me anymore. One unintended side-effect was that my little brothers stopped calling my parents mami and papi. That was rather sad because everyone knows how cute little children are when they call their parents mami and papi.

DDR

Time


My mother bought this clock in México

Today my brother Danny called me. I can’t remember the last time he called, but I was supposed to help him move some kind of media center into storage. The last time I was supposed to help him I kind of lost track of the time and forgot I was supposed to help him that day. He always forgot to write down my cell phone number, or he would have got a hold of me because all I was doing was shopping for bananas, apples, and oranges. That seemed to take up my entire attention span. Hence, I forgot I was supposed to help my brother.

So, anyway, I get to his condo and I immediately see the Aztec calendar/clock. “Is that the same clock that we had in our basement at 2509 W. Marquette Road?” I asked. “It is,” he said. I immediately took a picture of it with my digital camera that I had brought along for just that purpose. Well, not specifically to take a picture of the Aztec calendar/clock that used to be in our basement at 2509 W. Marquette Road, because I didn’t know it still existed, much less that my brother Danny had it hanging in his living room wall at this very moment.

Lately, I’ve been taking my camera with me to more places just in case I see something worth photographing. Danny tells me that he took the clock hands off because they had somehow broke. Gee, I wonder how? I’m surprised that the clock survived at all because we used to play very rough in the basement. Things were always flying in our basement and caroming off the ceiling or the walls–if not objects that were never designed to fly like pillows, sofa cushions, or books, then human bodies such as my brothers or me.

Now that I look at the picture of the Aztec calendar/clock, I wonder: Who was the genius who thought of putting a clock in the center of the Aztec calendar. I’m not sure where it came from, but my mother probably brought back as a souvenir on one of her many trips to Mexico. No matter how many times my mother went to Mexico, she always brought back more souvenirs. She wanted to move and live in Mexico, but since she couldn’t, she was bringing Mexico back to Chicago, one souvenir at a time.

DDR