[Sugar-devel] [ASLO] Release I know America-2

[James Simmons]

Gabriel,

It's worse than you think.  In the U.S. we don't even consider Canada and
Mexico "America".  About the only time anyone says "North America" is when
talking about cars.  We have North American Car of the Year to disguise the
fact that our auto manufacturing jobs went to Canada or Mexico in search of
cheap labor and/or adequate health care.

I agree with leaving the Activity name alone.  It is correct.

This reminds me of a Canadian girl friend I had many years ago who used to
talk about South of the Border and mean the U.S. That threw me for awhile.

James Simmons

On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 6:46 AM, Gabriel Eirea <geirea at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2011/8/21 Paul Fox <pgf at laptop.org>:
> > i meant to say this when i read the previous mail about this
> > activity -- my apologies for perhaps waiting too long:  i think this
> > activity (in english, at least) would be more correctly titled
> > "I Know the Americas".  north america, south america, and central
> > america aren't known collectively as "America".  they're called "The
> > Americas".  (plus, for better or worse, when anyone says "America" in
> > english, they're almost certainly referring to the USA.)
>
> On the other hand, given that this is an educational project, it
> wouldn't hurt using the correct term for a change.
>
> I'll tell you a story. When I was a kid in Uruguay they were showing a
> very popular TV series called "Fame". In one episode they would
> rehearse and present a dancing piece called "America". I was all
> excited since for the first time I was going to watch on TV something
> that had to do with me in some way, I felt "included", if you know
> what I mean. Then the piece started and they were all showing flags of
> the United States and the Statue of Liberty, and I was all confused
> and dissapointed. "What's wrong with these people?" was my 10-yr-old's
> thought.
>
> Later on I grew up, had the chance to learn a few things and lived in
> the US for 7 years. I came to appreciate the good and bad things of
> the country and its people, and in the end human beings have so much
> in common anywhere in the world.
>
> I would only hope if a 10-yr-old american ;) kid opens this activity
> it would create the same type of cognitive dissonance the Fame episode
> created for me at the time, and he would ask around, and hopefully
> some interesting conversation follows up.
>
> As you can see, for us living in the backyard it is not a small thing,
> since behind the innocent word there are so many things we wouldn't
> even know where to start.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gabriel
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