Raul Godinez-Ramos - Scholar-in-Residence from Mexico

Field of Study: International Relations
Home Institution: TEC de Monterrey
Host Institution: University of Virginia at Wise
Grant Dates: 2010 - 2011

Raul in front of the University of Virginia at Wise

Picking up and leaving two decades of everyday life can be daunting, and I must confess I felt a certain amount of reluctance to simply picking up and leaving Mexico, even to participate in the in the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program at the University of Virginia-Wise (UVA-Wise). Today, I laugh about it, but looking back I can see I was terrified. Yet aside from a brief culture shock experience involving guns and contact lenses, my stay in Southwest Virginia has been wonderfully illustrative. It has and continues to be an un-equaled learning experience for all involved.

In 2010, as an Adjunct Professor at TEC de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico I watched helplessly as the violent and deteriorating conditions in my country destroyed the potential of prosperity and stability that had previously characterized the region. With sadness and frustration, I felt a significant gap emerging between a fearful United States and a resentful Mexico.

Mexico and the United States have always shared a difficult history. A history of shared misperceptions is how my good friend Gaby De la Paz very accurately defines it. Both countries have a very limited understanding of their next-door neighbor. Both sides are riddled with prejudice and fear. Debates about historic connections and the shared diplomacy can and does fill volumes, but the actual faces of Mexicans and Americans, not just the abstract ideas of who we are as a people, remains cloudy, remain veiled.

The Fulbright Program unquestionably provides the opportunity for a very personal exchange on a grassroots level; a true exchange of ideas and voices. Visiting UVA-Wise as well as other colleges and universities within the Commonwealth of Virginia has shown me that a real on-going exchange of ideas may be the only solution to the regional challenges that afflict both countries. The people and students I have met, both within and outside the classroom, have been keenly interested in comprehending the changes that Mexico is experiencing and the impact these will have in the region’s future well beyond the usual TV newsbyte or newspaper caption.

Personally, my visit to this part of the U.S. has spoiled me for the rest of the country. Never before have I experienced the warmth, affection, friendship and interest that I have been shown here. George Hiller and Amelia Harris, as well as their families, have been generous and caring hosts. True friends for a lifetime, I hope.

All that I had to offer, I tried to share everyday with friends, students and colleagues. But what I am returning to Mexico with is just as important.

My visit to this region of the United States has contrasted two distinct visions of America that I had never connected before: that of the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s in his novel The Great Gatsby and the work of the artist Norman Rockwell. In the America I experienced in Southwest Virginia, the Gatsbyan ideals of prosperity, abundance and ambition are tempered by the Rockwellian ideals of community, of aid to the weak or defenseless, of honesty and hard work. I feel that this is the treasured American legacy that I wish to share with my students upon my return to Mexico.