Cirrus@Austlit

The column comments on the media coverage of two women: in Australia, Emelia Caruana, a ballerina born in Malta and wrongly portrayed by the media as being a sex slave to Bob Dylan; and in the United States, Pamela Smart, a woman convicted of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband committed by her fifteen year old lover and three of his friends.

The column gives an impression of the ethnic diversity of Fairfield and its surrounding suburbs in Sydney's west, where many new migrants to Australia have first settled.

The author also writes of the sense of loss experienced by many migrants: 'Y junto a lo que tenemos, lo que nos falta, que tambien nos pertenece: la familia que dejamos, los amigos que nos olvidan, las posibilidades que ya no son' [Along with what we have is what we miss, which also belongs to us: our families left behind, friends who have forgotten us, the possibilities that are no longer...].

The column includes quotes from Keating and Hawke [translated into Spanish] and comments on Australia's moves to restructure its economy under the Labor government of the early 1990s. The author writes that this economic reform mirrors transformations in one's personal life. The author writes: 'Los años de las vacas flacas han sustituido a los de la vida fácil...' [The lean years have replaced those of the easy life...].

The column mentions a Brisbane court case which found two women guilty of stabbing a man to drink his blood. It goes on to canvas a number of perceptions of women, settling on two categories into which the writer believes all women can be placed: 'bolero women' [mujeres-bolero] and 'tango women' [mujeres-tango].

For those readers who claimed not to understand 'Inglis' published two weeks earlier, in this column, 'El Menda' provides a brutally clear assessment of the chances of migrants from a Spanish-speaking background to succeed in learning English in Australia. Numerous English words and phrases are used throughout the column, in a style of code-switching not uncommon in migrant communities.