Disgusted by writers’ disrespect

As I set out to read about the wonder and magic of experiencing faraway places and peoples in the April 4 Travel section, I was appalled at the emanating ethnocentrism and rigid mind-set of writers Susan Spano (“She Finds a Place to Call Maison, Sweet Maison,” Her World) and Ben Brazil (“The Soul of Colonial Quito”). Their articles were dichotomously degrading to the native people of the places they were privileged to visit.

I have lived in Europe as a heavily budgeted college student and had not a fraction of Spano’s melodrama in finding a delightful living space. Granted, the differences in lifestyle play a huge role in this comparison. I would expect, based on her budget, that Spano is well-to-do and, based on her reason for moving to Paris, a respected professional. I am perplexed, then, why she approaches her relocation as such a complete ditz and purports this ditziness to be acceptable as she recommends similar means to her readers.

If she spoke the language of Paris, maybe her ordeal would not have been an ordeal at all but business as usual. She took French before moving only to get access to other Americans looking to swap homes. What an ignorant approach, totally neglecting the element of assimilation when traveling.

Brazil’s article perpetuated Eurocentric values and offered a justification for all ethnic others to hate Americans, especially when they travel. After I read his line about the “triumph of Ecuadorean logic,” where he ridicules native Ecuadoreans for not wanting tourists to overrun their sacred space for prayer, I was revolted.

I am a seventh-grade middle-school teacher in one of New York City’s most downtrodden public schools. I have a huge sign in my classroom that reads “Our travels are our ultimate classroom,” and although my students are hungry, abused, depressed, ailing and utterly broken most of the time when they walk in, they are beginning to understand that traveling, whether to the Bronx or the Hague in the Netherlands, is the way out of this cycle of poverty. In what I do, we live by it.

If the mainstream media do not have that same sign written for all to see, the respect that we must have for a land and its people and the mission to free young minds and live in a just world is seriously damaged.

Parissa Escribano Majdi

New York