Some of the Spanish blogs I read and which I keep in my Spanish/spanglish weblog seem kinda strange for this blokehead called J. It is so weird (yes it’s a neologism) that I feel am intruding in a circle where anyone else but the voices in it are part of it. It’s been six months since I entered the TJ sphere and for the most part were looking at a circle of artists, news writers and apparently some are writers which like to hang around with themselves and thus form a certain type of closed circle. There aren’t that many joe average blokes out there. I know my city and it is highly much like the rest of the country, un pais de contrastes, so most of the blogs in that clique are middle class people with their own values, and of very good families, there are about 30 to 40 such blogs and happily, they do not represent the mil or so inhabitants of Tijuana. Like I said, I just feel intrusive, at first I was delighted to find so many blogs that had to do with my city but no sooner I started to read them in earnest that I discovered that they are very conscious of the vocabulary they use, I can just imagine the pressure to adjust to a certain type of code of conduct between themselves and therefore careful of what they write about. At one one I even had to defend spanglish because they so rabidly were dead set against it.

There are very few blogs out there that do speak as if they were out there, in the streets, that is the vocabulary I seek, and every now and then I find a word here and there that confirms my own vocabulary. My social background growing up in my city was of very humble origins, my grandmother had a very modest curious shop in a jungle full of capitalist savages, her being single and raising two children and lived most of the times near the border so money wasn’t really an issue when it came to food but other pleasantries in life were of course a more luxurious event, it sort of reminds me of Edmund Gosse’s child rearing but without the religion involved. Anyways, the point being is that I for one do not feel like I can relate to their values at all and in fact produces anxiety in me whenever I read them, I just can’t seem to swallow their experiences without criticizing them. It’s a clash of values am sure.

I am glad that Tijuana has so many talented youth to represent her and am sure that they are doing a fine job out there in doing their expose’s and I hope the very best for them since they are doing exactly what I would have done so as well had I had the same opportunities as they have. It goes to show that my city is growing in wealth and not just materially but in people who are proud of her as well …

Go Tijuana!