Clearly,
you are talking to the wrong one.

Need I remind you that people like me
Are no strangers to the ripping away of our
Homelands?

We have seen, all too many times what your version
Of “cleaning up” the hood looks like.

It looks like
Manifest Destiny at its worst.

It looks like blood stained cotton and tobacco fields.
And black bodies hanging from
Sad, southern willow trees.

And like disease infested blankets
Wrapped around Native children.
Who can’t say the word Genocide
In their own language because
Their language has been stolen from them.

It looks like the United States stealing
Land from Mexico
And then putting up borders made of men with guns,
In order to force a people from reclaiming their home.

Sweet woman,
I need you to understand this.
These streets are not just asphalt and concrete to us.
They are our stories.

Our souls live in these houses.

This place may seem dirty and inferior to you,
But in my opinion, it is the legacy
of a beautiful and resilient people.

Tell me,
How will the children learn their own language
If they cannot sing along
to the mariachi music, blaring
From neighborhood windows on Saturday mornings?

How will they remember their dances
If they cannot remember how to play double dutch
And hopscotch on their own sidewalks?

How can they learn the anthems of their people
If they cannot feel the neighborhood Block
Party Bass in their bones?

Who will cook for them?
How will they know
What their revolution tastes like
If they can’t find their soul food
In your grocery stores?

If you keep forcing us from our homes,
The children will forget who they are.
You will keep wiping away our history,
And they will become refugees in their own country.

Listen to me when I tell you this,

We don’t want you to clean up our neighborhoods,
We want you to give them back.

Ashley Finley has been obsessed with writing for as long as she can remember.  As a child growing up in the heart of Los Angeles,  she went to writing to process the world around her. As an adult, she now advocates writing as a means to more fully experience the world around around us. Through her poetry she hopes others will be drawn into her experiences and feel the fundamental essence of who she is. For more by Ashley, check outfiestafinley.com and follow her on Twitter @ash0matic.

The post POEM: Gentrify appeared first on mgregueiro.

The post Time vs Reason: Thomas Paine appeared first on mgregueiro.

Does it need to be non-fiction? Probably not. For some reason, however, I usually find myself reading fiction when I want to get away from my life. In this way fiction functions as a tool for me to escape reality, whereas non-fiction has helped me be better grounded reality.

Self-Help vs. Personal Development

In this way I have found reading to be a great springboard for personal development. By regularly reading a non-fiction work that challenges my view of self, history, or the world around me I am constantly being tutored by new authors.

They key for me has been finding great authors. Publishing is like any other business: for every well led enterprise there are hundreds of scams macerating as legitimate businesses.

A few tricks I have found to avoid these self-help scams is not buying anything that uses words like “quick,” “fast,” or “today” in the title. Also I will generally not read a book until it has been recommended by a source I respect. This can be a close friend or a public figure. No system is perfect, but this method has led me to great books more often than not.

Recent Finds

In the last few weeks I finished Conscious Capitalism and am now reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. 

Conscious Capitalism is by John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods Market, and Raj Sisodia, Professor of Marketing at Bentley University. The book is a call to consumers and business leaders to foster capitalism that serves the best interests of all stakeholders, e.g., the environment, local communities, employee, shareholders, managers, etc.

Though filled with some great thoughts, this book could have been summarized into a single essay. In other words, if you get your hands on the book, be ready to do a lot of skimming. For this reason I recommend checking this book out from a local library instead of purchasing it. Many of the ideas explored in the book are very thought provoking, so all this considered it is a read I would recommend.

Drive is by Daniel Pink, a New York Times bestselling author. I am still making my way through the book, so my thoughts are only partially processed. From what I have seen, the book seems to be divided up into two parts. The first part is the “book proper.” It is filled with Daniel’s smooth writing style and tons of science to back up his critical analysis of America’s core beliefs surrounding motivation. The second part of the book seems to be more of a handbook than anything else. To be honest, I will probably skip most of the second part, but I would say the book is worth buying or borrowing just for the first half. Daniel did give a TEDtalk summarizing his findings, but I don’t think it compares to the depth of analysis he provides in his book.

Final Thoughts

The book one chooses for inspiration can vary drastically, but the effect of reading books that ignite that childlike curiosity has really helped me stay driven, positive, and hopeful. In my experiences depression has resembled a sort of feedback loop. I feel stuck in something (thought, emotion, social situation) and I get stuck in an infinite loop of negative thinking and apathy. A thought provoking book has been the best thing I have found to prevent these loops taking hold, and has even helped me out of a few. This is not to say that clinical depression can be cured with a good book, but I can say that in my experience when I am learning from great authors my quality of life is much better.

So feeling sad or stuck? Try picking up a book that will wake up that childlike curiosity that brings back the inherent joy of doing something.

Matthew González is a pedestrian, cyclist, and in-denial vegetarian who decided to blogs his adventures. He formerly worked in Miami with Teach For America and now travels Europe doing research as a Fulbright Fellow. He launched mgregueiro.com as a space to entertain, inform, and inspire the curious minds  hiding throughout the wrinkles and corners of the interwebs. Follow him on Google+ for the most up-to-date news and posts.

The post A Chapter A Day Keeps Depression Away appeared first on mgregueiro.

Though originally met with much hostility, these chinos (what Spaniards call any convenience store run by migrants of East Asian descent) have nearly completely run their Spanish competitors out of the market by holding larger selections, being open more hours, and selling items for less. This trend has paralleled the increase of migration from East Asia and is telling of the slowly changing demographic of Spain’s population.

New Origins Of Spanish Migration

According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, in 2000 there were 71,015 Spanish residents from Asia; by 2006, this number had jumped to 201,000. More recent numbers by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide even more specific data about the national origin of these growing numbers, showing that China holds the largest percentage of Asian foreign nationals in Spain.

This continual growth of Chinese immigration has not only led to the rise of Chinese run convenience stores, but also an increase in restaurants that serve Chinese cuisine. A Google search of “comida china” (Chinese food) in Santander, shows nine Chinese restaurants, not to mention the many more with no online presence.

As Chinese restaurants spring up across Spain, and all of Western Europe, they have created a sort of underground culinary railroad for poor Chinese men and women seeking a better life in Europe. Last June, the first annual Festival de Cine Migratorio, an international film festival focusing on the modern migrant’s story, in Santander, Spain provided a platform for one of these stories. The documentary, entitled Me Llamo Peng (I’m Called Peng), shared the remarkable journey of Peng Ruan, a Chinese man who filmed his six-year struggle working at Chinese restaurants across Europe until eventually making it to Spain. As more and more Chinese-run convenience stores and restaurants are established, there are more opportunities for Chinese migrants to find work in a nation that has a long history racism.

This correlation between Chinese immigration and the increasing accessibility of Chinese cuisine is not surprising, as ethnic groups migrate to new communities, it is common for them to create space for the familiar: for home. This relationship between immigrants and their food has led to food renaissances across the world, e.g., Indian cuisine in the U.K., Mexican food in the Southwestern United States, the influence of African culinary traditions in modern Caribbean cuisine.

The continual influx of Chinese migrants throughout Spain has fostered the carving out of a broader cultural space. This reality is changing Spain in many ways. Not only do young Spaniards have East Asian classmates for the first time in Spanish history, but as Spaniards learn more about Asian culture and become more comfortable with its presence within Spanish borders, Spaniards are fusing the two cultures together in powerful ways.

Asian Spanish Fusion

Two vanguards of Asian Spanish fusion are Spanish chef David Muñoz and his wife Angela Mortero at DiverXO. Before opening DiverXO with his wife in Madrid, David worked at Nobu and Hakkasan in London. Working there, he learned the Asian culinary techniques he would use to breath new life into traditional Spanish cuisine. Now David and Angela’s restaurant has become one of the hottest tickets in not just Madrid, but all of Europe, with average reservations being taken up to thirty days in advance.

This recent shift in immigration paired with the food revolution that has taken hold in Madrid, marks a 180 from the nationalist identity promoted by Franco. Only one generation removed from the years of institutionalized homogeny, a time when speaking anything other than Spanish Castilian was outlawed, this generation of Spaniards has made great gains.

The Long Road Ahead

Unfortunately, even with all these changes, Spain’s integration of Asian migrants is far from perfect. Though Chinese-run convenience stores have become a staple of modern day Spanish life from Seville to Santander, xenophobia still holds strong across the nation.

In January, Special Reporter for the UN Human Rights Council Mutuma Ruteere, called upon the Spanish government to take a more active role combating racism and xenophobia. In a UN News update, Mr. Ruteere called for “a clear and more visible political leadership in combating racism and xenophobia.”

Warning against reported incidents of scapegoating migrants as the cause of economic hardships, he called out the media’s “stigmatization of certain groups, including migrants, and the propagation of racial prejudice and negative stereotypes”. He went on to say, “More needs to be done in order to prevent the negative portrayal of migrants in the media, including their criminalization.”

Will the Spanish government take the lead in further opening the Spanish people to migrants? Will the Spanish media take a fair and balanced approach to exploring the stories of migrants, their experiences in Spain, and the effect of their presence on the economy? These questions still lack answers, but the work Spain has made over the last ten years should be celebrated and will hopefully provide a foundation for growth in the right direction.

Matthew González is a pedestrian, cyclist, and in-denial vegetarian who decided to blogs his adventures. He formerly worked in Miami with Teach For America and now travels Europe doing research as a Fulbright Fellow. He launched mgregueiro.com as a space to entertain, inform, and inspire the curious minds  hiding throughout the wrinkles and corners of the interwebs. Follow him on Google+ for the most up-to-date news and posts.

The post “El Chino”: Food, Culture, And The New Spain appeared first on mgregueiro.

The post Ralph Emerson On Destiny appeared first on mgregueiro.

However, just as their are cons to ebooks there are also many pros. Below are five reasons my library has become nearly 100% digital in the last two years.

Space

As the population of major cities continue to grow, space becomes more and more expensive. Although dedicating an entire room to a beautiful library is probably better than having an in house arcade, unless you are rich this is just not realistic. Luckily, in the era of the ebook, it is possible to store a library that would make any old Oxford tutor jealous in the cloud.

Live in a one bedroom apartment or studio, then why chose between a couch and a bookshelf when you can just move your library to the invisible shelves of the Internet : )

Weight

Some people live in the same city their entire lives, but I am not one of those people. As a child I moved all over Los Angeles county and since graduating college I have lived on both coasts of the U.S. and I now live in Spain. Moving is pain enough without 200 lb. of books. The weight and space of a physical library makes shipping or flying with it very expensive.

Solution?

Take your entire library with you via smartphone or tablet.

Price

On average, ebooks come out much cheaper than a book in print form. Unfortunately publishers and online vendors a like have been super slow to adopt ebooks and sometimes even taken illegal actions to set the price of ebooks much higher than they should be.

But as the court system and market adapt to this new technology, there is amazing potential for the cost of textbooks and other historically expensive print books to drop significantly lower than traditionally printed books. Why? Because publishing ebooks doesn’t require ink, paper, or shipping.

Access

A few years ago a good friend of mine moved to Turkey. She loved reading, but could not read Turkish, so I asked her what she planned on reading while in Turkey. Her answer? Ebooks. Through the the online Kindle store all she needed was an Internet connection to download millions of English titles. Oh the power of technology : )

Not only is this technology ideal for world travelers, but it also opens doors for historically poor communities. Many of these communities are located in book deserts: geographical regions with no access to quality bookstores or libraries. In these regions of the US, and world, it is often impossible to visit a quality bookstore or library without leaving the community. As Internet access becomes more an more universal, online libraries and bookstores will solve this issue at a fraction of a price that it would take to build the libraries and bookstores necessary to give these communities access to physical books.

Evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-RvzXGH2Y

The inclusion of links, videos, and manipulatable diagrams now allow for a deeper level of engagement between readers and books. Now audio and video can be embedded directly into an ebooks pages allowing readers to engage with text in new dimensions. In fact, this evolution of written language has led to the next generation digital book, allowing readers to interact in new ways with not only the text, but with each other. Imagine the day when the writer-reader and reader-reader relationship are  successfully transformed to a social network platform. In this era the book would cease to become just a oneway transmitter of information and a central hub of discussion and debate. We are truly witnessing a literary revolution.

Matthew González is a pedestrian, cyclist, and in-denial vegetarian who decided to blogs his adventures. He formerly worked in Miami with Teach For America and now travels Europe doing research as a Fulbright Fellow. He launched mgregueiro.com as a space to entertain, inform, and inspire the curious minds  hiding throughout the wrinkles and corners of the interwebs. Follow him on Google+ for the most up-to-date news and posts.

The post 5 Reasons Ebooks Are Better Than Print appeared first on mgregueiro.

The post Learners Inherit The Earth appeared first on mgregueiro.

And the first line came out like this:
Constructed thusly of beatific heartbeats I drift along city sidewalks like Dispatched truth. Waking my soul up with “Bang Bang,” looking a little crosseyed as I’m singing “Here We Go.” I am the metaphrastic mystery of these Salty City streets.

And then I thought that’s a little much.
It’s very slam poetry,
but not just right.
So I started racking my brain for something else

And I thought, Music!
So I sung out line two like this:

Music is the cursive of my soul

And I dug it.
But then I was just dancing and singing with myself,
Which is very unproductive,
So I moved on.

I asked myself,
what makes me, me?
What even makes any person a person?

Line three came out like this:
Countless quanta create this unique ebb and flow that I’ve come to call my soul. Through collision theory, my marvelous chemistry moves as organized chaos throughout countless beliefs and systems that are emergent properties of the up, down, strange, charm, beauty, and truth flavored quarks that tickle my metaphysical tongue…

What the hell does that even mean?
I had no idea, so I said,
Ok, just list the things that you do

Line four:
I work and contribute to society.
But Karl’s words mark the spot
That says my soul is being sucked
In this age of mechanical reproduction.

And then it took a dark turn as I started to picture the pieces I thought were me

I’m a poet. (how is that useful in success?)
I’m a friend. (where are your friends now?)
I’m a musician (why aren’t you still singing?)
I’m a person (but you’re so lacking in personality)

Then, like Freudian psychology I tried to fix my fixations.
I ended up thinking of that night
in my parent’s kitchen
where tensions were higher than tides would be
if the blood red moon
was this side of silver-lined clouds.
The night
when suicide
was more than a word
as serrated steel thought longingly for soft skin.

And then I thought about how I hadn’t done my homework.
And then I thought about how everything I do is a
distraction from facing the faceless.

And then I started frantically scribbling words like
Tired
Lonely,
Schizophrenic
Sometimes
Depressed
Life
Life
Life
Death
Living
I’m dying
In circles
In circles
Walking
Walking
In circles
Running
From fear
Fear
Fear
Fear
Shadows and
Fear
Fear itself
Full of fear yet still half empty

And then I wrote it down for the first time:

Love.

And the pen stopped.

Organick Consiousness was asleep all through high school. Not caring about a damn thing and reveling in the lackadaisical. When he hit college, he was dramatically awakened by inspiring professors, by philosophy, by poetry, by science, and through the art of conversation. He’s been piecing himself together slowly and meeting beautiful people while doing it. He recognizes that there is always a door, a window, or the creativity needed to find light in dark times.

The post POEM: “Self-portrait” appeared first on mgregueiro.

1. Phonetic Alphabets

Before about 1050BC the languages of the western world were symbols. To communicate the idea of “house” you would draw one. This becomes increasingly difficult when needing to visually communicate inanimate objects such as “spirit.” Luckily, the Phoenicians developed a list of characters that represented sounds, instead of things. Talk about one giant step for mankind!

This great gift was shared by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean and went on to be come the foundation of Aramaic (the ancestor of modern Arabic), Latin, and Greek. So three cheers to the Phoenicians for making all of our lives a hell of a lot easier.

2. Intratextual Space & Punctuation

The tablets, and later scrolls, produced by the linguistic decedents of the Phoenicians soon reached as far as Ireland, which is the birth place of another linguistic invention: intratextual space. Until about 1000 AD all western texts were written in scriptura continua (Latin: “Continuos script”). This combined with the lack of paragraphs and punctuations made reading ancient Latin very difficult. To give you a taste of what this was like, try re-reading the first two paragraphs of this blog post as it would have appeared.

fromthefirstwordsspokenbyhumanitytovideoembeddede
booksthewayswecommunicatethoughtsthroughimagesandsoundshas
evolveddramaticallyoverthelastthreethousandyearsherearejust
fourpointsofthatevolutionthatwetakeforgranted1phonetic
alphabetsbeforeabout1050bcthelanguagesofthewesternworld
weresymbolstocommunicatetheideaofhouseyouwoulddrawonethis
becomesincreasinglydifficultwhenneedingtovisually
communicateinanimateobjectssuchasspirit

Now imagine what it would be like to read an entire book without spaces! Thank you Ireland.

3. Hyperlinks

The ancients aren’t the only ones to re-invent the written word. Not only has the computer age brought us programming languages such as Java, but with the introduction of hyperlinks, it given readers instant access to text sources. Back in the day, footnotes and other citation systems directed readers to the title of a piece and then readers would need to go through the trouble of locating it. With the introduction of hyperlinks, or links, readers now have sources just a click away.

Moreover, links have changed the way we read. Skimming is now the law of the land. In the same way that baby boomers channel surfed, links allow Internet users to surf through dozens of pages in the blink of an eye. Imagine how a Roman historian would react if you hyperlinked one of their papyrus scrolls : )

4. Embedded Images & Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-RvzXGH2Y

Hyperlinks opened the door to many familiar and brand new inovations in text. Though images in text date back thousands of year, our lifetime saw the birth of intext videos. In fact, this online innovation has now lead to the next generation digital book, which allows readers to interact in new ways through embedded images, videos, and manipulable charts and graphs. Though a Roman would freak out if you hyperlinked their scroll, imagine if you embedded a music video : )

Matthew González is a pedestrian, cyclist, and in-denial vegetarian who decided to blogs his adventures. He formerly worked in Miami with Teach For America and now travels Europe doing research as a Fulbright Fellow. He launched mgregueiro.com as a space to entertain, inform, and inspire the curious minds  hiding throughout the wrinkles and corners of the interwebs. Follow him on Google+ for the most up-to-date news and posts.

The post 4 Inventions We Take For Granted Everyday appeared first on mgregueiro.

Little brother,
Look what they’ve done to me.

For millennia
I have woven myself into humanity’s dreams,
Racing comet-like across their collective consciousness.
As basic as a circle,
A hooked cross.
A child of lines
And busy hands.

Simple. Recognizable.

They called me Swastika.

I was everywhere.
Even the one place I wish I wasn’t.

I admit I was jealous of you, little brother
And the star you rose with.
For I was just a hooked cross,
Glossed over on cracked claypots and deerskin teepees.
Hidden along with kisses on the collars
Of Chinese children,

Ironically, to protect them from evil spirits.

All of Asia blended me into their backgrounds,

Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism.

I could tell you where any temple was.

A Sun symbol. A heart’s seal.

Eternity.
A minor celebrity on one continent,
A child’s absent doodle on the rest.

He took me West, little brother,
Asked me to point right and lean, hold the pose.
Shone a bright, white spotlight on me
While I danced on a red carpet.
They all waved at me, little brother.
I got caught up in the rush to become a major celebrity.
It was too late to turn back.
They slaughtered each other under my hooked shadow.

The smoke of their flesh darkening my form.
I let them make me into something horrible,
Simple, recognizable, detestable.

Humanity’s dreams no longer idly trace my form
In innocent doodles.
Countless millennia may never wash away
The stench on my lines
No matter which way I turn.
A minor celebrity on one continent,
A symbol of hatred on the rest.
So many killed while I waved over them,
Their murderers justifying themselves,
By the meaning they put into my shape.

They killed for me.

You don’t have my hooks, little brother,
But we have the same parents,
The same simplicity of lines.
We have different men who defined us.

Even if we’ve both been on popes.
My body count is well over 6 million, little brother.
Pray they do not start counting up the ones
That were killed for you.

Jesse Parent placed 2nd at both the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams, was a finalist at the 2012 Ontario International Poetry Slam, and was part of the 8th place Salt City Slam teams at the 2011 and 2012 National Poetry Slams. He has been on the 2007-2012 Salt City Slam teams, has served as SlamMaster and coach for Salt City Slam, and has served on the executive council for Poetry Slam, Inc. You can read more poetry by Jesse on his site jesster.net.

The post POEM: Hooked Cross appeared first on mgregueiro.