Pete Moye’
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Business major Manny Mendez visited his parents’ home country of Spain when he was 13 years old, and was surprised at the time to find that the fast food company McDonald’s served wine.

He asked his father about the little cups with red liquid, and his father said, “Oh, they’re serving them wine.”

Mendez delivered a presentation about Spain, the home country of his parents and grandmother, that illustrated the key cultural differences and similarities between it and the United States.

This presentation was the second in a series that will continue throughout the semester known as International Tea Time, hosted by the International Student Association, which was held in Social Science building 138 on Sept. 28.

He began by talking about the history of the country and the effect of conquests that influenced Spain’s identity up to the present.

Mendez has been a member of the ISA for several semesters.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is to get a better understanding of what the people that are a part of ISA are coming from,” he said.

“I hope everything does come out pretty nice and smooth. I hope they like what we are about to bring to them and they enjoy it.”

Fake passports were handed out to ISA members so they can collect stamps, stickers or signatures from presenters over the course of the semester for every International Tea Time.

International business administration marketing and management major, with a double major in art, Aljen Medallo said the passport was used as incentive last semester to encourage members to attend meetings every week.

“If they go to each and every [International Tea Time] meeting and get a stamp from the presenter … they do get incentive at the end of the semester,” Medallo said.

The link between the Spain presentation and Cerritos’ Study Abroad Program was purely coincidental, according to Medallo.

“It reminded us that there is a Study Abroad Program at Spain. We kind of neglected the fact that we were also supposed to promote that and when Danita Kurtz, our adviser, mentioned it at the meeting, that’s when we were like, ‘Oh yes, we do have that.'”

Medallo acknowledged that they should have thought about it, to tie that into one knot.

The ISA will continue their International Tea Time series on Oct. 5 with a presentation on the Philippines at SS 138.