Reflections on Mexico - Six-word Memoirs

Regarding a February 2008 segment they were doing on the book Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers, artists and musicians, the website for NPR's program Talk of the Nation wrote the following:

Once asked to write a full story in six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway responded: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

In this spirit of simple yet profound brevity, the online magazine Smith asked readers to write the story of their own lives in a single sentence. (...) Their stories are sometimes sad, often funny — and always concise.

Inspired by this concept, the January 2009 Tortillas and Trade delegation wrote a few of their own six-word memoirs regarding their time in Mexico and what they learned, felt, saw, and experienced. 

 

  • Humble folks of hope and determination
  • Lost in Arizona's desert: family picture
  • Travel companions sharing hearts of compassion
  • United We Stand.  Divided We Fall.
  • Fifty pesos.  Not enough.  So hard.
  • Everyone needs someone to lean on.
  • The opposite of poverty is enough.
  • Anonymous corporate greed destroys indigenous culture.

 

 

  • Mexican friends.  Food.  Culture.  Problems.  Hope.
  • So much poverty.  So much strength.
  • Larger View Opened Up.  Locked In.
  • New friends.  Learn.  Culture.  Experience.  Reality.
  • So rich while others are poor.
  • Found: GMO corn in my field.
  • Mexican corn farmers.  NAFTA.  Maquila workers.
  • Loving people, food, sunshine; profit pales.

 

 

 

  • Revealing God's Love for the poor.
  • Aztec empire flourishes.  Spaniards arrive.  Destruction.
  • Mountain spirits to join past to future.
  • End fighting.  Let's all make circles.
  • Women of Mexico - Change, Challenge, Voice
  • Powerful country's effect on southern neighbor
  • Mexico lands - Where are your guardians?
  • U.S. drug consumers.  Mexican deaths.  Problem?
  • Poverty.  Women's Cooperative.  Now: Hope, Confidence.