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By Gloria Bishop
Stuck in traffic the other day, I turned on the radio and heard on NPR about a troubled teacher who abandoned all his students when he ran out to safety during the devastating earthquake that rattled China not long ago. In his blog he stated that he would not give his life for anybody, for his daughter maybe, but not even for his mother.
I continued listening to a special report focusing on the billions of dollars that Americans spend each year on their pets. They illustrated it with the story of a man spending nearly $20,000 on chemo and radiation therapy treatments for his pet goose.
This program reported that in a study conducted among married couples, a high number of them admitted that when returning home they greeted their pets first, before their spouses. Furthermore, women polled for the report stated that they had closer relationships with their pets than with any family member; and what is even more alarming, they cared more for them than for any other human being. Something is terribly wrong here! Have we drifted too far from our priorities? Where do we draw the line?
 This is one legacy all of us Latinos should always be very proud of owning, the strong and unshakable sense of family values that were instilled in us at an early age and have been passed from generation to generation. Our Hispanic ancestors always knew what was important. It matters not where life has brought us to live, one thing we should always remember and be proud of, the fact that our family is and will continue to be the most valuable possession that we have. The relationships we have nurtured with each family member will always take priority above anything else. We need to learn a lot from other societies, but other cultures should also learn from us. There is one thing we should never change, our family values. That is our Hispanic Heritage! |
