I believe this all has to do with the Mediterranean Sea.
In Europe, those who live near the Mediterranean are different from those who don't. The direct, immediate expression of deep feeling is one of the traits Mediterraneans have that northern Europeans do not. I was once visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam looking at a painting by Vermeer of a young woman reading a letter. It is a picture of still, sumptuous beauty, the very meaning of the inner soul's need for contemplation. But, it's quiet. An Italian woman sat next to me, talking to her children. She was reading the English version of the museum guide, and so I gestured toward the Vermeer and muttered "It's quite beautiful, isn't it?". She let her eyes linger on my clothing a moment, and I got the idea that she thought me badly dressed. Then, she turned toward the picture.
"Yes, but it is like so much of the Dutch painting," she said.
"How so?" I asked.
"It is boring!"
I asked what kinds of painting she liked, and she replied that the Italian renaissance was like no other, and the reason for that was that it had been fomented and completed by Italians.
"Olive oil! Wine! Jewelry! Food! Excess!" She turned again to the Vermeer. “Nudity!” She held a hand out, palm up, as she looked at me and shook her head. "This woman is looking at a shopping list!"
Conversation with those who live near the Mediterranean is often like this, and the countries around that sea — from Europe, Africa and the Middle East — have shaped the very history of Latin America, helped in quite significant ways, to be sure, by the people who lived there before los Mediterraneos arrived there. So Latin America is an immense continent filled with very, very expressive people, expression different in essential ways from the cold difficulty that is so prevalent among the North Americans.
So, with regard to globalization ...
A Mexican-American friend of mine once was complaining to me about the U.S. government's current hostility toward illegal immigrants. We were watching some Republican on C-Span as he harangued a near-empty senate chamber about how these "illegals" should be rounded up and sent home. We shouldn't provide schools for their kids or medical assistance. Just simply being here makes them criminals.
My friend, a fifth generation American citizen, said "What immigration problems is he talking about? All these white people that have been showing up? Is that it?" He then went on to describe the current intense growth of Spanish-speaking political clout in California as "the silent re-invasion of occupied northern Mexico."
Article comments
1 - bliffle
Excellent article!