Uff, only 3 days left in NY.
It really was a good experience.
Very quiet, there were days when I felt that I had not spoken more than 5 words with someone, only things like how much it costs, good morning, sorry.
At first it was really hard for me not speaking English, but time passed and it became very introspective experience, uff.. That a kind of inner dialogue I had reached. It is one of those trips which give you a chance to permit to spend the time on yourself, to argue and fight with yourself, to hate yourself and then to reconcile and to find yourself in the middle of the city just laughing, having fun and the pleasure just of being in NY, feeling what is happening outside of myself .. All these things while I was looking and seeing all kinds of art, tones of art, theater, concerts and people of all kinds. I really think that I was surprised more by some African American hairstyles that by many pictures inside the museums, that kind of things they do in their hair and that a peculiar style they have, they were really enigmatic to me.
The race variety was funny to watch and to listen, people from all around the world with such different styles. I went to many neighborhoods, such as Chinese, Russian, Jewish, Hispanic, And Indian and others, where all the cultures were mixed. I like getting lost myself in the city and seeing everyday things, the way people live their lifes.
One day I went to Junction Blvd subway station, line 7 at Quins, I just went outside and started walking, I was looking find out a little bit more about Mexicans living in NY. And this was the area of mostly Latin people. In my first writing on the blog, I was complaining about the conditions of the compatriot’s life here, and Julia suggested that I could talk about this subject during my Apexart public talk. And as I really had very little information abut this point and didn’t really know what happens to these people, I ´ve decided to go to their place and to see what I could find out there.
Immediately when you get down the subway, you can see the stalls of corncobs, tamales, fruits and juices, and 80% of people are Latin Americans, mostly Mexican, Ecuadorian, Salvadoran, etc.. The Spanish floods the streets and you here the cumbia and the banda music all over around.
Without anything special to do, I just decided to walk by the Roosevelt Avenue, and in a little while I bumped into a street musician named Philip and I started to talk to him. I asked him for certain areas and he made me understand that he had nothing to do, and so he became my guide. He showed me one music studio that let you record your music for very little money, he took me to one community named Make the Road NY that supports and consult to recent arrived emigrants, than we went to see the jornaleros ( day laborers) who were immigrants and they stand in one corner waiting someone to offer the job. Felipe talk to everyone there and everyone was greeting him, apparently he was very popular.
When we entered to one place, and they asked for our names and he answered that his name was Jose. Later I asked him if he was Jose or Felipe and he told me that he had false papers of resident named Jose. Then he told me his story, that he was extorted by the judicial police in Mexico, who had stole a lot of his stuff and as he didn’t want to give them more , they threatened to kill him and that's why he was living here. The 50 years old man, who made me a company in my walk and who talk me the thousand and one stories.. it was a great day and a great deal, but when I went back, I don’t know why, I had a devastating feeling and a bitter flavor of the neighborhood.
