This time from a now-retired senior IBM executive:
I grew up with Spanish all around me for the first fifteen and a half years of my life back in Havana. But, ever since I came to the US in October of 1960, my education, my work and just about everything else have been in English. Over three quarters on my life have been lived in English, but most will agree that those early years represented by my Spanish quarter are pretty important years indeed.
While I speak Spanish fluently, my vocabulary and command of the language are much stronger in English than Spanish. I find it easier to read books and magazines or watch films in English. It would be very difficult for me to write this blog in a language other than English. On the other hand, for some inexplicable reason, I have trouble appreciating poetry in English, but I do enjoy Spanish poets like Jose Marti, Pablo Neruda, and especially, Federico Garcia Lorca. Maybe you have to appreciate poetry with the more primal parts of your brain, which in my case were formed in Spanish.
Also, in the second half of Wladawsky-Berger’s post, what worries Argentina and Chile:
Argentina and Chile are not competing for global leadership except in selected areas. Among their top concerns is their role in a globally integrated economy, feeling squeezed between wealthy countries like the US and countries with lower labor costs like China and India. Given their size and resources, how can they best find their uniquely differentiated positions or niches among the global giants out there as well as among the other mid-size countries around the world which are also competing to find their own niches?
(This post is somewhat of an update to this one from yesterday.)