MLO 5: Cultural Praxis
The student demonstrates that he or she has been actively immersed in and has internalized Hispanic culture.
There are three pathways by which this outcome can be fulfilled:
1. Pathway 1: By participating in a study-abroad program in a Spanish-speaking country for at least one semester. WLC's Spanish program has exchange agreements with the University of Aguas Calientes and the University of Queretero in Mexico, and the University of Córdoba in Spain. In addition, through CSU International Programs, you can study at universities in Madrid or Granada, Spain or in Santiago, Chile.
2. Pathway 2: By living and working in a local heritage community over an extended period of time without interruption for at least two years.
3. Pathway 3: By participating in and/or completing 10 of the following cultural learning scenarios with accompanying documentation, in the target language:
● Participate in service learning within a local heritage community for a minimum of eight weeks beyond the actual service learning requirement.
● Make a minimum of three home-visits in the local heritage community to interact and communicate with members of the Hispanic culture regarding topics of personal interest, the community, culture and language.
● Attend or view via media a minimum of 10 cultural events and /or social activities of Hispanic culture.
● Actively participate and/or perform in a school or heritage community event or celebration.
● Participate in a heritage-community project (of some duration) that requires proficiency in Spanish and knowledge of Hispanic cultures.
● Conducting a one hour in-depth interview with a speaker of Spanish, eliciting, in a conversational manner, comments of a biographical nature, cultural and social observations and anecdotal reflections.
● View and comment on 10 movie-length films produced within and about Hispanic culture.
● Participate at least five times in organized sports or recreation activities of Hispanic culture.
● Demonstrate cultural skills by making hotel reservations, ordering meals and shopping in stores or markets in heritage settings where Spanish is spoken. This objective is assessed by faculty.
For this MLO, pathway 2 would apply to me, as I have lived in Monterey all my life but I have been immersed in the Hispanic culture for more than two years. In my situation, I was lucky enough to have a few latino neighbors since childhood (I have moved twice), as back then there weren't many latinos living in Monterey. When I would go to the park with my mom, I would usually be the only latino there. It was the same thing when I attended kindergarten. It was only me and another boy that stood out from all the caucasians that were in my class. When I attended first grade in another school (still in Monterey), I notice that there were more latino kids along with kids from other ethnic backgrounds, but as time passed, I would attend schools with the majority of the students being caucasian. With that being said, if it weren't for my parents (as I will explain later), I do not think that I would have the knowledge that I do now about my culture. An area of the MLO that I found challenging was living in an area where there weren't as many latinos as in other places (e.g. Salinas, Seaside). I dealt with this challenge in many ways. One would be that since my parents had friends who lived in Seaside and Salinas, we would visit them. With that in mind, I would learn more about my culture (e.g. food, movies, music, etc.). I would also attended to latino cultural festivals in Watsonville, Salinas, and in Seaside. I also participated in decorating sugar skulls for Día de los Muertos as a club activity at CSUMB. Lastly, in recent years, I have become more involved with the latino community. I did my service learning in Salinas and I am currently working in Greenfield. In both of the places, I had to speak in Spanish for the students to understand the material that I was teaching. This MLO contributed to my personal intellectual growth by teaching me the culture and traditions of Mexico. I still have a lot to learn but I think I have the basics down. In the future, I plan to visit Mexico and hope to get a better grasp of those concepts.
There are three pathways by which this outcome can be fulfilled:
1. Pathway 1: By participating in a study-abroad program in a Spanish-speaking country for at least one semester. WLC's Spanish program has exchange agreements with the University of Aguas Calientes and the University of Queretero in Mexico, and the University of Córdoba in Spain. In addition, through CSU International Programs, you can study at universities in Madrid or Granada, Spain or in Santiago, Chile.
2. Pathway 2: By living and working in a local heritage community over an extended period of time without interruption for at least two years.
3. Pathway 3: By participating in and/or completing 10 of the following cultural learning scenarios with accompanying documentation, in the target language:
● Participate in service learning within a local heritage community for a minimum of eight weeks beyond the actual service learning requirement.
● Make a minimum of three home-visits in the local heritage community to interact and communicate with members of the Hispanic culture regarding topics of personal interest, the community, culture and language.
● Attend or view via media a minimum of 10 cultural events and /or social activities of Hispanic culture.
● Actively participate and/or perform in a school or heritage community event or celebration.
● Participate in a heritage-community project (of some duration) that requires proficiency in Spanish and knowledge of Hispanic cultures.
● Conducting a one hour in-depth interview with a speaker of Spanish, eliciting, in a conversational manner, comments of a biographical nature, cultural and social observations and anecdotal reflections.
● View and comment on 10 movie-length films produced within and about Hispanic culture.
● Participate at least five times in organized sports or recreation activities of Hispanic culture.
● Demonstrate cultural skills by making hotel reservations, ordering meals and shopping in stores or markets in heritage settings where Spanish is spoken. This objective is assessed by faculty.
For this MLO, pathway 2 would apply to me, as I have lived in Monterey all my life but I have been immersed in the Hispanic culture for more than two years. In my situation, I was lucky enough to have a few latino neighbors since childhood (I have moved twice), as back then there weren't many latinos living in Monterey. When I would go to the park with my mom, I would usually be the only latino there. It was the same thing when I attended kindergarten. It was only me and another boy that stood out from all the caucasians that were in my class. When I attended first grade in another school (still in Monterey), I notice that there were more latino kids along with kids from other ethnic backgrounds, but as time passed, I would attend schools with the majority of the students being caucasian. With that being said, if it weren't for my parents (as I will explain later), I do not think that I would have the knowledge that I do now about my culture. An area of the MLO that I found challenging was living in an area where there weren't as many latinos as in other places (e.g. Salinas, Seaside). I dealt with this challenge in many ways. One would be that since my parents had friends who lived in Seaside and Salinas, we would visit them. With that in mind, I would learn more about my culture (e.g. food, movies, music, etc.). I would also attended to latino cultural festivals in Watsonville, Salinas, and in Seaside. I also participated in decorating sugar skulls for Día de los Muertos as a club activity at CSUMB. Lastly, in recent years, I have become more involved with the latino community. I did my service learning in Salinas and I am currently working in Greenfield. In both of the places, I had to speak in Spanish for the students to understand the material that I was teaching. This MLO contributed to my personal intellectual growth by teaching me the culture and traditions of Mexico. I still have a lot to learn but I think I have the basics down. In the future, I plan to visit Mexico and hope to get a better grasp of those concepts.