Last Friday morning, Cici and I were able to meet with Julio at Iguanas Ranas for the first time. Julio moved to East Hartford from Guadalajara, Mexico at the age of 10, and now lives in Middletown. We started off by discussing why we were meeting as he is our community partner for this semester’s class, and we gave him more of an understanding of our global engagement class and program. Julio then began to tell us about his young son and his dog who is a German shepherd. The main thing that I was glad I was able to take away from the conversation was how much Mexican culture values family compared to most Americans. Julio explained how one time he took his son out of school for 2 weeks to visit his hometown Guadalajara, Mexico. He said he tries to take his son there at least a couple times a year so that he can truly experience his Mexican culture and see how holidays like Christmas are celebrated by spending time with family and eating, rather than relying on money for gifts. I thought that this was really cool as I have always had Hispanic friends but never have heard this personal perspective. Julio also told us how the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted his family’s restaurant business. This stood out to me because it’s a much different feeling when talking to someone that went through it, instead of just hearing about it on the news. I really enjoyed our conversation and being able to hear from him.
