first week...

I had a great week in NY, seeing a lot of things and being treated very kindly by Apexart´s people. Definitely , it´s a great experience and I´m happy for this opportunity.

My plan for today was to visit Chelsea, but I think I'll better stay home, to have some rest and to write in the blog.

Anyways I´ll go there tomorrow, because of Carlos Amorales Openning in the Yvon Lambert, and also becouse I´ll meet there some of my mexican friends .

This week I had already met some Mexican friends who live here.

Definitely I am not the kind of person who just wants to spend his time with people from the same country when goes abroad, but my English does not allow me to talk much with people who don´t speak Spanish here, so, when I see Mexicans, I take this opportunity and talk everything that I couldn´t speak during this week!!!

I met my friends on two occasions, and it was really funny to talk to them and to know their opinions about NY, which are very differents, by the way.

One of them is amazed and really in love with NY, and he says that I should come here to live, because there is everything you need here,

Another friends seems to have more critical points of view. Some of them like living in NY becouse don´t want to live in Mexico anymore, and others enjoy staying in here, but want to return to Mexico. And one firend told me he was confused, trying to understand the being-Mexican-situation.

All of them came here to study, or to residence and they are legal and have very different conditions here, even they make you feel as they were World citizens.

I have the same situation, I mean, everything is good here for me, the city is pretty kind and it treats you friendly as a tourist, it´s very easy to move and access to things.

But I think I would have another idea about it if I would live here and should enter to working life.

What about illegal Mexicans in NY? They are charged with another energy.

I´m worried about this subject, I mean, the classes differences and racism with native and poor people in Mexico is very hard and it´s really painful for me..

Walking on the streats of NY, and in case of recognizing Mexicans , it feels nice when they ask me : “ what part of Mexico are you "Paisano"?

But when people ask me where am I staying, what am I doing here, and

when I answer that I live in Manhattan and I was invited to have an art residency here, their faces change, and I feel, that they guard up, as if they saw me as an American.

This confuses me and it really hurts, seeing them walking on the strats of the city like shadows, with their head down, doing hard work without being recognized, ignored, as if nobody saw them…

Sofia told me she read somewhere some information about the priority of taking on Mexicans, and one restaurant owner replied that Mexicans work hard and do everything you ask without complains and for being illegal they are paid less.

Well, this is not something new, I mean, the situation is well known, but I just cant´stop thinking that these people are slaves, and because of their illegal condition, they seem not to enter into the discussion about equality, human rights and all these things witch take places in all other the world.

By the way, I read the Eduardo Verderame ´s blog, the Apexart´s resident formBrazil, who describes all kind of relationships of the various migrations in the NYcity based on a census. He mentions diferent immigrant communities that have shaped NY, speaks of Afro Latinos in Quins, Bronx and Harlem. But, what caught my attention is that he doesn´t mention to the Central Americans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and other form Latin America

And that´s why I think these people are invisible, and only if you have a look inside of any kitchen of any Restorante you will see them….