Hola readers!

I’m glad to be back at this after the short winter break. Its now a new semester and with it come different material that we will be focusing on in our ASTU class.
This term in ASTU we will focus our attention and learning on the War on Terror. And so we will have the opportunity to look at texts that reflect different aspects of it like the origins of  memories in different events like the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, better known as 9/11 for example, the transformation they undergo when these memories and stories are seen from different human perspectives, the way we all portray and represent those memories individually and collectively and how events such as 9/11 connect to other in different places through globalization.

So far in our class we have read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and to me the story was very touching and given that the main character Oskar’s story reflects one of thousands of stories that originate after 9/11 I put it into perspective and thought of the incredible contrast there is in the lives of those who were in New York that day from before the attacks and how drastically things changed after.
One of the most important and interesting things I have learned so far and I believe is central in our CAP Global Citizens concentration of Arts is to understand the link of these events and how we as students with different backgrounds and diverse nationalities look at important events like 9/11. As it happened to most of us who remember when it happened it was very shocking and even though I didn’t fully understand what was going on it did have a very traumatizing effect on me as a 6-year-old boy repeating the CNN clips over and over again thinking about all of those who were inside the Twin Towers.
In class I was intrigued by how much more attention 9/11 has been given in Canada compared to Mexico, given that both countries are the main trading partners of the USA and I hope that the way we analyze these events though the texts we read this term can help me understand many of these phenomena better.

Till Next Time,

Gabo.

Sources:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1312yr.html