From Pre-K to the 5th grade, I attended a Spanish immersion elementary school. At this school I learned all my academic subjects in both English and Spanish. I was also surrounded by culturally diverse faculty raging from Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc. My teacher from Mexico comes from a small province in the capital city called Tejupilco de Hidalgo. In order to foster cultural growth, he set up an exchange trip where we would visit his boyhood school one year and families would come to the US the next. After missing out on it during the first year of the program and hosting a family the next year, I was very eager to visit his hometown my 1st grade year.

Being that the trip was so long ago, I cannot remember every name of the people and places I visited, but looking back on this trip today, I have a greater appreciation for the cultural immersion we received. It went well beyond the food we ate and the language we learned; it manifested itself through art and dance, and the people and their way of life that was so much different than ours. The province of Tejupilco has deep ties rooted in ancient Aztec culture, and this was evident in many of their hobbies. My favorite, though, was the dance festival we attended. At this festival, we got to learn how to perform a ritual dance depicting a group of hunters preying on a deer for food, and the story that is told through this event. After learning, we were afforded the opportunity to watch professionals perform the ritual up close, and I remember being in awe of how elegant and fluid all the movements were and how they all intricately tied together.

My favorite part of the trip was witnessing another Mexican tradition. I found it odd at first that so many people gathered around in a decent sized arena to watch chickens fight for up to maybe 30 seconds until one of the two died. Thinking about it now, it’s a little barbaric, but my seven year old self was eating it up. I was thoroughly entertained not only by the action, but by the spectacle of it all as people danced on the floor after the fights were over, and waiters were constantly walking around serving food and drinks.

The part I appreciate most about this trip is that you got to get away from a big city that has all the things you could find in the US. By being in a small province, I got to experience real culture and family atmosphere from people who were not at all like me.