So this is weird. Everybody else gets to write all kinds of sentimental reflections about their time at UMass and I still have another year to go. That being said, a lot of stuff has gone on in the last year so I’ll see what I can come up with.
One year ago I was just finishing up SPAN 240. I was a declared Spanish major but hadn’t gotten to any real courses, never mind have any idea what I was going to do with my degree. The only certainty I had was my semester abroad in Montevideo, Uruguay in the fall of ’13. My time there was unforgettable and as cliché as I can sound, it was the best 5 months of my life. My host family, I swear, is the nicest family in all of Uruguay; I had two great host parents that helped me with everything I needed and were always up for a chat at any time of day, and four host sisters and one brother who were all relatively close to my age. Staying there was the best part of my trip.
On a more academic/professional note; I began to formulate some kind of an idea for my future. What I noticed being abroad living in a different place, speaking a different language, dealing with different people, is that people don’t always understand “the other”. Everyone I knew back home was worried about my safety, my health, my education, my well-being because I was going to South America and they had no idea how to locate Uruguay on a map. They had no understanding of Uruguay, no knowledge of Spanish, no knowledge of the people, the food, the drinks, the siestas, none of it.
When I got back this semester it was a little depressing to return to the cold, wet, wind tunnel that is UMass but I eventually got over it. What helped me a lot was my course load. This semester some of the more meaningful classes I took were: SPAN 494 (this one), SPAN 497 Translation Project, and ANTHRO 297 Intro to Latino Studies.
SPAN 494 was a great chance for our group to get together after going abroad. It was an awesome space to share stories and experiences and how we felt about all of it. The fact that we had some real school work to do wasn’t that bad either because the articles we read were so much more relevant to us after going abroad. It is an exciting and even fun experience when you can take something academic and see its direct correlation with your life, your journey, and your thoughts.
SPAN 497 was a last minute add that ended up being absolutely worth it. We translated the web page for Holyoke Health Center as a group of 21ish students. This was a really eye opening class. I had never translated before but I thought I’d be able to hold my own (I had obviously survived Uruguay so how hard could this be?) and we would just have to work out some grammar stuff here and there. Come to find out, medial translation seems to be one of the hardest things in this world. There are so many phrases, words, and concepts in the medical field that make no sense if you try to translate literally and then you don’t even know how to explain them in English. It made for a really interesting time working with a very large group of opinions to come out with a finished product. Despite all our troubles with the work it was very fulfilling to invest ourselves in the work because we knew it was actually doing something. This was a real project brought to us, not an exercise out of a text book. We knew that the work we were doing had an objective and we wanted to fulfill our end of the bargain.
ANTHRO 297 is a class that I think should be mandatory for Spanish majors. Intro to Latino Studies is as if, if not more important, than studies of Spain and Latin America for us Spanish majors. I spent 5 months in Uruguay. I’ve spent 21 years in the US. One of the big reasons that people choose Spanish as a major is because it will, supposedly, increase our job marketability and make us oh so valuable, but how many of us are planning on going to work abroad? The reason that Spanish is desirable these days is because of the immense population of Latinos in the US. To think that we can take studies of Latin America and Spain and understand everything is impossible. This class helped us to delve into the history, the policies, the politics, the movements, everything that comes along with the Latinos in the US.
There’s a common theme in all of these classes. They helped me see that there is a profound difference, however fabricated, between white-Anglo Americans (that’s me) and a whole world full of Spanish speakers (Latinos in the US, or citizens of other countries throughout the world). What has developed as my goal is the idea that we need to bridge this gap. I don’t know how much I’m going to get going on solving the systematic problems and inequalities of the world…but if I can serve in some way as a bridge, both linguistic and cultural, I will be doing a lot of good, and I will enjoy it. I’m about to enter the Interpretation Certificate program next semester and I think my previous experience in this translation class will be very helpful. Now that I’ve already done the brute work I’ll start to understand the philosophy around it and better understand translation as a practice instead of as an assignment. If all goes well and I really enjoy that track then maybe I’ll pursue it more, look into grad programs in translation, etc. who knows. If not, I would love to work internationally, maybe for the government. Although after seeing all the disparities our government has imposed on Latinos and other minorities, they do provide a decent number of international jobs that I think would be really interesting. Some kind of intercultural/international something or other would be something I could really get excited for. Maybe the path to those careers will be through grad school in the Communication department? I don’t know, but it seems that now I have a way to communicate with people it would be good to learn more about the actual art of communication, which could lead to all kinds of opportunities.
So although I am still wide open with what’s going to happen to me and my life, this past year has helped incredibly to get me to a more focused wide open state. At least I have a decent idea of what I want to do, now I just need to figure out how to finish it off and get there.
Will Jones ’15
wjjones@umass.edu for any information/questions/job offers?