Author Archives: Alvaro Fuerte

Alvaro Fuerte .

English 1121 .

Prof. Kim Liao .

March 28th, 2019.

Publication: Buzzfeed.com

TATTOOS AND PROFESSIONALISM

Tattoos, a form of art that consists of permanently plasming the piece to ones body by   inserting pigment (ink) by punctures made with a needle. In certain cultures it was practiced by cutting a pattern design in to the body, some  people still do it this way to connect in a more direct way to their ancestors.  The word originated in the mid 17th century (originally as tap-toe) from the Dutch ‘taptoe’  literally ‘close the tap (of the cask)’. Whereas in the U.K. meant a rhythmic tapping or drumming.

Being a form of art, representation of culture, love and other symbolic meaning,  people around the world have more and more pieces in their skin. For most people, it’s taking art to the next level since you can a have an artist’s work in your skin for  as long as you live. But tattoos haven’t always been a form of art, at some point in time the only people that would have this permanent ink pieces would be a sailor, a prison convict and/or gang member. Groups developed a form of symbolism that to today’s date still represents what a couple hundred years back did; the most remarkable example is, prison convicts and/or gang members whom own a death would get a ‘tear’ under their left eye showing that they had already taken a life or numerous lives depending on the size or number of tears.

Even though not most of the symbols and design  that are are used in today’s tattoos are a representation of a crime committed by the inked person (someone with an ink tattoo) people still judge this individuals as if they were. Most of people’s tattoos are meaningful representation of their persona, of their individual creativity, of people whom they love, miss, about their individual believes and how it all affects the way the live and portrait themselves done by placing them on their skin forever.

But how this did happen? How did tattoos evolved from something that in a sense was a representation of criminalism or any sort of bad life to a much more popular culture?  In the article “How Tattoos Went From Subculture to Pop Culture” co-authored by Victor Chateaubriand states that “Today, 36 percent of Americans aged 18-25 have at least one tattoo, according to a report done by the Pew Research Center,”  this being  “more than one third America’s young adults.”  This implies that tattoos are getting more and more popular within younger groups and not necessarily because of gang relationship.  More and more younger generations realize the art and deep meaning that can come with giving or getting a tattoo, which is also a  hope for people that are sometimes rejected or judge by the ink in their body, that in a future not so far away there will be no stigma whatsoever about a person with tattoos all over their body.

Even though in today’s society is pretty normal to see people with a huge part of their body cover in tattoos everywhere we go, doing their jobs, having a normal life, there is still a lot of prejudices and/or tabus around tattoos. How many of us haven’t heard the lines along “Don’t ruin your body like that!” some religious people might even say “Your body is a temple!” and yes it is, but is ours. For example certain “professional’’ careers and job sites, for example, layers, doctors, artitechs, teacher or professors, politics, etc. because it is not “appropriate” nor “professional” for the title, because tattoos are for “uneducated” individuals. And the truth is that although most people understand that this is not the case, many that work on these fields have been a target for this kind of comments.

Norma Fuerte, Mexican radiologist, couple of tattoos and piercings on her body. Kids, teenages, adults, and elders see them all the time but say nothing, only a times some elderly lady would tell her that she’s “too young to that kind of damage to her body,” said Norma when asked about how tattoos and perforation affect her job, but, Antonieta Padilla, a Mexican pediatric odontologist have a very different experience. For Antonieta the case is somewhat different, her patients do not even notice she has a small perforation on her nose, but the parents do, “often I have to stop doing my job when the child’s  mom or dad see my perforation, some might never come back after since I am ‘not capable of doing my job’ for the fact of having a perforation.” Even though she is one of the best odontologist in town. Two years ago my internship teacher in high school told me she had eighteen tattoos and three perforation at the moment of conversation, but she also said that she had to cover them every single day because the principal said “it is not professional,” upon hiring; but the gym teacher had two full sleeves (arm cover of tattoos) and was perfectly fine for him to show them on school grounds.

Why some people think that is okay for some people to have tattoos and no okay for others? Why doctors cannot show them but radiologist can? Some people might argue that the level of education is not the same, therefore the presentation of themselves is not as important. Some argue that ink and perforations are not to a certain standard of health that a health service worker should have, which is very valid, but studies have confirmed that these perforations and tattoos do not affect the health of the individual if done properly, when  vegetable oil based ink will only affect your capability of donating blood for a time period of time of about eight to sixteen months depending as well on the body. No brain damage or anything that could cause a reason for a person with these type of modifications to do not do an appropriate job of a professional.

People with these tattoos prejudices do not understand that the nature of the action is not always the same, that more than a body modification is a form of art representing on a creative way a feeling. These representations do not make a “professional” less, in fact we could argue that it makes them bolder, and more unique, and it help us remember that more than a professional of an area of work or study, people are much more. A traveler, a passionate individual, a creative one, one that is not afraid of change, one that is human and learns to love their body on a very different way, putting your body as a canvas for someone’s art and your own meaning of things.

(Image: Keith Tsuji/Getty Images News/Getty Images)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mik-thobocarlsen/how-tattoos-went-from-sub_b_6053588.html

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Alvaro Fuerte

Prof. Kim Liao

English 1121

February 14, 2019

 

 

 

 

I am no writer nor a reader, I certainly I am no skillful English speaker. I cannot talk much about the language other than my own experiences and what I did to learn it, how those things helped me shape a not so broken English.

I lived my entire life in Mexico, never really cared to learn another language whether it was English or any other. I always wanted to speak English just so that I could understand some of my favorite songs, movies or TV shows, but never really to be able to have a full conversation with someone. Although I wanted to learn I never did anything to really be able to do so. The only time I would anything related to language learning was in school and unfortunately it would not stick with me for very long.

When I first arrived to the U.S. I knew this was my chance to learn the language that I knew could open a lot of doors to my own good. My dad took me to the district where they tested my very poor English since all I knew how to say was the basic stuff, “Hello my name is Alvaro and I am from Mexico” or “I am fourth teen years old” and of course some colors and other simple phrases. The man who was with us did his best to understand my dad’s broken English, as well as he did to explain to me in Spanish what my situation was looking like and what were the high schools I had to check out and choose from, all international HS.

This high school was supposed to help me not only on my academics but it would do a lot more for my English, the problem was that being an international high school there were hundreds of Spanish speakers students. This made learning the language two times more difficult than it already is. How could I learn fast enough to understand what my teachers where saying? I remember my first day of school I got home from school and went directly to buy a small book. What for? If I did not understand most of the words on it. Well, I would read a phrase multiple times and see what words I could recognize or understand and then translate the rest of the words and try to put them all together as they did better sense. After, I would translate the entire phrase to double check, most of the time I was right.

Part of knowing a language is to being able to speak it and pronounce it as best you can. To help me with this part of the process I would pick very slow songs and do with the lyrics the same as I did with the book. Then, listen to the song for hours and carefully listen how the singer would pronounce the words and try to imitate them as best as I could. In school not only did I have to communicate with the school staff but I also had grades to take care of, therefore I had class work, homework, and other types of projects that needed to be done by someone who was just recently trying to learn the language.

Wrote down ideas in Spanish, put those ideas in a proper sentences, translate word by word, put the sentence together, and checked on the books to make sure it was somewhat consistent, that is how my freshman of high school year looked like. Of course the more I practiced and repeated this approach, the more my English improved, and even though at some point of the beginning of soft more year I did not need go through so much trouble to write a sentence I would still do it every once in a while just to double check.

Eleventh grade had come to haunt me, “This is the most important year of all four, and this is what colleges look to,” all of my teachers said. I wanted to improve my writing skills, and even though I was ahead of most of the class on writing, reading, and speaking I was completely terrified. As most of the kids on the U.S. I read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, novel about a young girl in 1936, telling different stories about the racial conflicts at the time and how it affected their lives. This novel hit me in the face when I least expected it, and in the way less wanting way, it made realize that I had to learn the different variations of English there is since throughout my journey of becoming the professional I aspire to be there will be uncountable occasions where I will not have all those easy texts I used in my starting years. With the help of my English teacher from back when I was in the ninth and tenth grade, I was able to understand what the book was trying to say, how people used to speak back then and how modern generations have manipulated words or phrases to use them in totally different contexts, and how can a word that was used a hundred years ago with a very disturbing meaning was now used in a daily basis.

Thanks to my teacher I was able to understand a little bit better how the English language works and how I has or can be manipulated. I am still learning this language, every day I learn something new about it, a new technique, a new word, or even a new form of writing it down, but it’s really refreshing that I will keep on adding to my knowledge to write down my way out of college.

Hello mates.

photo of joker

Hey there, my name is Alvaro and I’m a nineteen year old with a lot of dreams and ambitions. I have to keep improving to achieve my goal of someday become a Pediatrician/Surgeon, but one step at the time. I am not much of reader so I don’t have any particular place to read. I like partying but also small talks. Good boy with bad habits.