The Latino Attitude Toward Junk

We sometimes wish we could get inside someone else's head - to see what is going on there. In the same way, we sometimes wish we could get inside of other cultures - who behave so differently.

Yesterday, when I was on my daily bicycle ride, I met a local policeman, whom I had known before. He speaks some English, because he had lived for awhile in Los Angeles.

He considers me his friend, because of these brief conversations. Down here, friendship is important - and people take advantage of the slightest acquaintance. This takes some getting used to.

I had met him once before, in front of his house - and he had introduced me to his two daughters, about six years old. This time he offered to show me his rancho - so I would know what they were like. I readily agreed.

The arrangement of some of the houses in Orosi, is strange. Most of the houses face the street, but other ones are back from the street, and only accessed by a driveway.

There is a locked gate, for his house, next to the street, that you cannot see through - so you have no idea what is behind it. Parked on his driveway was a beautiful new car, clean and polished. We went around it into the center of his property. That contained a tiny garden, that he was proud of - that contained a little lemon tree, an orange tree, and an avocado. All about three feet high. Also a row of lettuce, about eight feet long, and some other vegetables.

His garden was so small, it could not produce much food - but that was not the point - it was there. I was reminded of Americans that have tiny lawns, they are proud of, simply because they are there.

My next impression was of all the junk laying around everywhere - I wish I had a picture of it. There was so much worthless stuff laying around, you had to walk carefully to get through it. But he never noticed it - it must have been invisible to him. I remembered a car parked in the yard of the Police Station - it was a total wreck, and (to me) an eyesore. But it had been there forever - and no one noticed it.

Somehow, for Latinos, junk has a different status than it does for Americans. They don't seem to mind it lying around. This is true of unused buildings also - they are left standing, and no one notices them. In the States, these buildings are torn down completely - so not a hint of their existence is left. Wrecked cars are towed off, and disposed of.

Americans want their cities to look nice (and have zoning laws to enforce this) - but Latinos don't care.