I WANT YOU

Visual rhetoric is communication through visual images whether they are videos or a single photo or image. Visual rhetoric has been around dating back to cavemen times, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and native and tribal symbols. We use visual rhetoric everyday, when we FaceTime or video chat with our friends and family, when we are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, (which most of us are on constantly throughout the day… in our classes), and when we watch the news or read the news paper.

The newspaper always has political cartoons, sometimes funny with witty meanings behind them.

The image I have chosen for my visual rhetoric is a very well known and popular image that has been in newspapers countless times, school textbooks and recruitment posters.  

What does the image shown above bring to mind? Even if one had never seen this image before, there are many key factors that give away the meaning of this poster. The fact that the main colors are red, white and blue, would make one associate it with The United States of America. Uncle Sam (abbreviated U.S.) is the United States government and its people and this poster was used for the recruiting of young men during World War I and II. 

The Internet World

While books and journals are reliable scholarly sources, I am going to concentrate more on the Internet since we have become so dependent on it. In today’s world we are literally a push of a button away from any information we may need at any given time… for the most part. Smartphones are becoming more popular and more people are becoming new owners of smartphones with every passing minute.

I am an avid Google user and Google just about everything (no joke! My family makes fun of me for this). However, how much of what we read on the Internet is actually reliable information, because A LOT of what is now on the Internet is very questionable? Using Google you can locate scholarly reliable articles if you query “Google Scholar” and then query whatever it is you’re searching for under that.

In high school I learned very quickly that Wikipedia was not a very reliable source at all, from first hand experience. My friends went back and edited something that they were reading to complete gibberish, and never again did I use Wikipedia as a source for anything school related. And just like there is Wikipedia, there is “Yahoo Answers” and “Ask Jeeves” where the average person answers a question to the best of their abilities, or sometimes, very sarcastically. One just has to know the difference between what can be trusted and what cannot.

Bride To Be

So, I spent this weekend at South Padre Island at my cousin’s bachelorette party/weekend and I could not help but think how each bachelorette party is different. Some are more conservative than others and some are way on the wild side. However there is one universal rule: what happens at the bachelorette party stays at the bachelorette party. Not that anything bad happens boys do not worry! But its just girl business!

I, personally, would be shouting it to the world and making it known that it was my day/weekend. I feel like it is a perfect excuse to get pampered and make you the center of attention. I mean, it is basically your last several weeks of being a bachelorette before you are all wifey’d up!

I feel so honored to have been asked to be a bridesmaid in my cousins wedding. I have enjoyed every step of her journey into a new chapter of her life; from dress fittings, to showers, to the bachelorette party and the soon to come weeding. I think it is a beautiful experience, and being the youngest granddaughter I just keep taking side notes of cute ideas that maybe one day I could use for myself.

I am extremely happy for my cousin and her fiancé and wish both of them the best and mat God bless them with a lifetime of happiness!

Brother From Another Mother

My cousin Jerome and I are exactly two weeks apart (I’m the older one) and we have grown up and spent just about every single vacation together. Growing up, he lived in Laredo, and I lived in Brownsville so we really could only see each other on holidays.

Our adventures start way way way back when we would go to Candela, Coahuila for Easter. All of our other cousins are at least five years older, so we pretty much just had each other. Candela is a tiny little Podunk town in Mexico where our grandmama is from. Every year for Easter our whole family would get together there. As the older kids were off doing their shenanigans whether it be playing horse or poker, Jerome and I would beg our grandmama for pesos, walk on over to the town plaza and buy “bolis” (Mexican popsicles).

Jerome’s culinary interest grew right around our freshman year in high school. One summer, we were at his house and I was hungry, so who better to make me food than chef Jerome, right?.... WRONG! We ended up almost setting the kitchen on fire. Jerome had to throw the skillet in the pool and the smoke was so bad I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. We got lucky we cleaned up before his parents got back! (They still don’t know to this day!)

Our senior year in high school we participated in the Society of Martha Washington. This is where young men and women are presented to society as they portray an important person in history. The girls wear a gigantic eighty-pound colonial dress, as the escorts (in my case, Jerome) wear men’s colonial wear as well.

           

Jerome now goes to St. Edwards in Austin, however, we talk all the time. He truly is one of my best friends and has been by my side every step of the way. I do believe that the fact that the rest of my family is extremely close plays a huge role on how close we have grown to each other. I love him to death, and honestly don’t know where I would be without him.

Spanish

Literacy is the key to the door of opportunity. Being able to communicate with society and the community and just having the ability to talk to different people is a huge benefit. Being bilingual and literate in different languages gives one that much more of an advantage.

I spoke Spanish before I did English, and to this day I am still fluent. My eighth grade year I was the new girl at school, and being that I am fair skinned and have colored yes, my classmates did not expect me to know a lick of Spanish, much less understand it. Little did they know that as they were talking behind my back saying some not very nice things, I could understand everything they said and could probably even say it better. Weeks went by until one day I got fed up and answered my softball coach in Spanish. The look on their faces was priceless. That day was the last day I ever had that issue.

Since I now live in an area where English is spoken more than Spanish, in order for me not to forget my Spanish language, my mom makes it appoint that whenever I speak to her, that I speak in Spanish… that includes texting in Spanish.

Being literate in both Spanish and English has helped me so much. Since I do come from a predominantly Mexican area, it allowed me to hold my own and fit in. Now, being bilingual has opened so many doors in the business world. To this day I am so grateful that I was brought up the way I was. And being that we live in such a divers world, knowing a second language would never hurt. 

War on Drugs

Has the violence due to the drug wars in Mexico crossed over to the United States?

Coming from Brownsville, Texas (a border town), I personally believe it has. The amount of drug deals “gone bad” and gang related violence due to drugs has increased throughout the past several years and is all over the local news stations.

Not too long ago, there was an incident here in my hometown, where people that were part of the cartel went into a restaurant, took a man that was eating, and after some time of him missing, the mans body was found about a mile away from the restaurant with a bullet through his head. The underlying cause: Drugs; either someone forgot to pay up, or a drug deal gone bad.

Many of the “top dogs” of the cartel have houses and live at South Padre Island, or a lot also own houses in San Antonio. The Question isn’t has it crossed over, it’s how long until it gets worse?

Now, what can the United States do to help put a stop to this war on drugs?? Well because there are so many factions it is difficult to pinpoint a course of action.

In my opinion the United States should go in in assist form to the Mexican government to try to bring this situation under control, like we have done for other countries in the past.

I also have experienced the violence first had in Mexico, and I do believe this needs to end because it is just going to get worse. 

Down By The Border

My whole life I have lived in the very southernmost tip of Texas, Brownsville. In my hometown we are very influenced by the Mexican background and their way of life, including traditions, practices, and especially cooking. Our diets consist of high calorie foods along with greasy Mexican tacos, tamales, and tortillas, foods richer in carbohydrates.

Diabetes is a very big issue down in “The 956”, as we like to call it. And it all goes back to the lifestyle we are introduced to and brought up with. The foods are cooked using what is basically lard, as opposed to vegetable oil, or healthier alternatives. Don’t get me wrong, the food is TO DIE FOR, and the first thing I do when I go home to visit is go to the taco store “Ultimo Taco” and order my usual “seis tacos de bistek contodo.” This being said, I don’t overdue it. Which, moderation isn’t a word that is put into practice back at home, hence, a very overweight population, and that’s where the problem is. People do not eat until they feel satisfied, they overdue it and eat until they are too full to function. 

The lack of healthier alternatives is also an economical problem; they tend to be more expensive, where as “manteca” (refined lard) is a lot cheaper. The poverty level is very high and the average per capita earning is low.

Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley with the lifestyle we have and eating the foods that are native to my home, it is very hard to completely rid yourself of the foods and the way of cooking. However it is possible to eat whatever you desire, in moderation with the proper amount of physical activity, and to gradually adjust your diet.