Greetings to you and all.

My name is Yuka and I grew up in California, USA but am currently living in Marseille, France. I am majoring in Global Resource Systems in the faculty of Land and Food Systems with a focus in Agriculture, Economics and South America.

I think to pinpoint the initiation of my interest and appreciation in latinx culture I must take you back to valentines day 2015. But just one moment, it is not what you think. On this fateful day, my friend and I went to a joint concert between Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull during their Sex and Love tour.  To give some more context, remember, it was Valentines day and unbeknownst to us latinx people take this day quite seriously regardless of whether they are attending a Enrique/Pitbull bonanza.  This means that all of our fellow fans were adorned in full suits and cocktail dresses. And unfortunately I regret to inform you, there my friend and I were in matching bright orange running shorts and T-shirts that read “Crazy Mofos”. Looking back on this night I am hit by quite a wave of embarrassment by how out of place and even borderline disrespectful our outfits were, but still it was a wonderful concert featuring a lovely man behind us repeatedly yelling “Mr. World Wiiiiiiddde” (which is, one of, Pitbull’s self given stage names, another of which is Pitbull itself considering his name is Armando Christian Perez) and Enrique singing heroe in Spanish.

Since this formative night and thanks to many other influences, I find myself intrigued and drawn to the social movements, music, dance, food, art, feminism, clothing, graffiti, and history of latinx culture. All of which one could argue fits quite snugly under the umbrella of popular culture in Latin America.

So cheers to another horrid semester online, hopefully made marginally less horrid by new songs and the opening of our minds.