Christine Jensen
School Administrator, 36
Arrived in Madrid in 1990 from Cambridge, MA

    I remember when September 11th happened, and some people said, “Oh, it’s about time. You guys thought you were invincible.” I’ve had people say that to me! I always say, “How can anyone say innocent people deserve to die?” But they weren’t glad, it’s just that ETA has been here for so long, and it was never a big deal in the States. So for a lot of Spaniards it was like, “See what this is? It can happen to you too.”
    It’s not that Europeans are more inquisitive, it’s that they are more informed. America censors everything. The U.S. government doesn’t want people to see what is going on. If people really saw what was going on in Iraq…. I think there are certain things that should be seen, such as death, torture -- we’ve seen people’s heads blown off. In a certain way, I think it’s good to see because it makes you realize what is really happening, how horrible it really is. It has to be well measured, not too much, but not too little either. Although here, people are morboso, people love to see blood. In the States, it’s considered like sex -- forbidden. There can be a happy medium.