Editorial

So what is Latin Flavour? Is it an intense passion, drama, dance, culture, food, overrated TLN soaps; your guess is as good as mine. Latin Flavour, the lethora, the enigma, is it so different than other cultures? Not really. We are all human after all.

During the production of this edition, a friend of mine asked me to look up 2012 on youtube.com. If you haven’t heard of the 2012 phenomena, perhaps its time you take a quick peek behind this great Mayan Calendar Myth. As for myself, December 23, 2012 is something that has reminded me of how truly fragile we all are, not as individuals but rather as a human race. My intention is far from alerting anyone of whatever implications Planet Nibiru may have on our planet, but rather the 2012 notion falls more inline with a carpediem concept. Seize the moment. Every moment is special, yet some of us still consume ourselves with what we don’t have.

Why? This reminds me of a Peace & Conflict (UNI206Y) lecture during my undergrad at University of Toronto. More to the point, the lesson on how individuals behave when they perceive a gap between what it is they have and what it is that they want. The larger the gap, the more one experiences discomfort, unhappiness, unworthiness, less actualized, the list can go on and on, you can pick your favourite self-demoralized cliché; and more interestingly: Who is influencing our aspirations? Who is telling us what we should want and what we should have?

I can’t be more grateful than I have been over the past year. Thank you for your support, comments and feedback. We have been very pleased with how well people are responding to Mercado News Magazine. We have since then been very busy and have decided to change the format of the magazine, one to appease Canada Post’s mailing requirements and the other to include more pages and bring you more of what we are doing here.

Given the amount of work involved in publishing a great magazine, we have also decided to publish on a quarterly rather than bi-monthly basis. This shift in strategy will help us bring you additional articles of interest that we like to publish. After a long summer deliberation in a warm loft overlooking Liberty Village, we finally decided to use the Latin Flavour article as the summer months are here and our Latin culture is alive in the city through a number of events.

Within this edition we interviewed Pastor Valle Garay, a York University Professor and an enlightened intellect who shares some of his perspectives of Latin Culture in Toronto. On the other hand, culture is not just language, but also learned behaviours. Interestingly I found some research notes and asked one of our journalists to find out more about why shopping (for some of us) makes us feel good and the implications of that very feeling. I have also chosen to publish an article on how more companies are finding trial campaigns effective and how it affects consumers’ perspectives on perceived quality. For those young parents out there, of which I hope to be one day, I have also included an article on a new “coined” concept of transumerism. Sort of like getting those hand me downs from your older sibling or relative, but rather than clothes, something that young children can go through a lot of, toys.

Do you remember if you were the kind of child that would get bored fast of your toys? I certainly did. Some of us even get bored of our jobs or professional careers.

Over 15 years ago, I did promise myself, to publish a poem I wrote entitled Soda & Lime, about the trials and convictions of a young man at a bar, who wants to sober up and orders a Soda & Lime, but he never gets it... Although I did go through it and gave it a quick edit, I did want to preserve the train of thought of a 19 year old Latin-Canadian young man, which I share with you within this edition. So what is Latin Flavour? I would stop to tell you, but it just wouldn’t be the same. I do know that you don’t have to be Latin, to know what Latin Flavour is. As per our culture, anyone can be Latin, whether you speak Spanish or not. It is not a Soda & Lime.

(Radiohead - House of Cards playing)