To the Editor:
I just wanted to comment on Taylor Barnes' '09 lack of understanding of Latino culture. In her recent column ("In search of coffee culture," Nov. 19), she mentioned how alcoholic drinks, instead of coffee, are used to socialize in Brazil. As a Venezuelan student at Brown, I can taste the cultural difference too. In Latin America, we dance to get to know other people better, and our drinking culture is very different from the typical American college one: We drink for the taste and for the cooling feeling (so needed when dancing), not for the blackouts.
I understand her need for coffee. I love coffee too, but in 70-degree weather the last thing I want to do is to sit and sweat. I want to stand and dance, more so if I'm going out with somebody for the first time. The deep conversations will come after, when we are too tired to keep on dancing but we are too captivated with each other to let the night end.
Her disapproval of the Latino way of socializing is ethnocentric, and I'm sorry for Barnes if she can't find romance, but that does not make us, or our culture, any less respectful or full of passion. It just makes us different.
Daniela Rodriguez DS '10Nov. 19
