I'm reading these Spanish stories to help me maintain and improve my abilities in Spanish. I just finished a story about this Chilean family who lived in Oregon. The husband began to enjoy a new hobby here in the United States with our many summer garage sales. His wife sometimes was driven crazy with different odds and ends he would bring home.
Through this story, He takes you into many aspects of cultural differences between Chile and the United States. Author, Juan Armando Epple, tells this tale called "Garage Sale." The Chilean man and his wife also have a daughter who doesn't understand why they just can't go back to Chile. She has heard many stories of the beautiful land, the grapes that are as big as our figs, the watermelons that are sweeter, redder and juicier, and large beautiful mountains. She also heard that her grandmother made Chilean desserts the absolute best. She wanted to return, but the family had an "L" on their passports significant of people who were refused re'entry into Chile because of political exile. He offers her the solution that maybe they can bring her grandma to the US.
In this hilarious story, the man ends up purchasing a grandmother at a garage sale when the idea comes upon him after seeing an eccentric grandmother sitting in an antique rocking chair. The family holding the garage sale actually offered to sell her to him seeing it as a positive alternative to finding her a nursing home, yet having very little to offer her in their tiny apartment.
This is a shocking presupposition about the way we care for the elderly in the US. Although fictional, the irony of this purchase reveals a deep gap between family bound systems typically found in other cultures in contrast to the independence found here in the US.
3 comments:
So true!! however, despite the fact that many families live with their extended relatives,the stigma of the elderly as not productive and as an object of charity remains evident. Yet,we need to look at the Asian culture were the elders are seen and respected as an authority based on experience and wisdom.
Great analogy Jo!
Its amazing, how much we can all learn from each other! >( tqm Eli! :)
I just found this story because my mother telling me about it. This story was actually written by my grandfather and my mom told me to read after I found some short stories my grandpa wrote in the past. My mother also told me that the family in this story in completely based off their experiences coming to live here in the United States.
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