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June 18, 2025 80 mins
Mind your manners and raise your standards, class! Asst. Professor Dr. Carlos Morales-Ramírez drops by the studio to school us on the research methods he uses when studying flags and writing his Driver Award-winning presentations. We chat all about who puts maps on flags and what puts flags on the map; we dive into an in-depth discussion on Puerto Rico; and we discuss something called "human geography". I promise it's a discussion class, not a lecture.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got and the imagine matters. Will you even get
the standards and what they represent?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Just tick my voices and.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Understand this logic podcast. Facto counts, That counts.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
What's up?

Speaker 4 (00:26):
That says?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
And Welcome to episode seventy two of Flagged for Content.
It's the only podcast that has a NAVA Driver Award
winner on this week. That's right, we have Carlos Morales
Ramirez coming right up after I get through just a
few housekeeping things here. It is as always a Flags

(00:49):
for Good podcast as well. Uh, and you can go
on over to Flags for Good dot com slash flagged
for Content for like the number and you know, check
out all the amazing flags they have there. They have
like new ones every week every time I go on there.
And when you go to check out, use code flagged
four content spelled the same way with that four digit

(01:11):
in there. Actually, my brother in law bought me a
flag for a birthday gift recently and did not know
that I had that code. So shout out Matt though,
thanks for the Portland flag regardless, and not a whole
lot else I wanted to get into here. Oh I
did want to shout out we have two new patrons

(01:31):
since I've been announcing them anyway. That would be Brian
ran Near and Carlos Moreles Ramirez, a couple familiar names
if you've listened to slash watch last episode and the
one you're listening to right now. Thank you both so
much for the support. I appreciate you coming on as guests.

(01:52):
I appreciate you being on the Patreon. That said, last
little plug here up top, do go and join the Patreon.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
We have this episode with not just the.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Two previously mentioned guys, but but with most of our
past guests. We started doing it in like I think
the teens are twenties in the episodes, and if you
do the ten dollars level, there's even more bonus content,
So go check that out Patreon dot com slash flags
for content spelled out anyway. That's the end of that.

(02:23):
As mentioned a couple times, now, I've got Carlos on
the show. He is a professor at Westchester University. Teaches
a lot of different classes that relate to your interests
in mine basically, but no more dilly delliing, but no
more dilly delaying. I will let Carlos explain what he

(02:45):
does right here. Let's fly on in, folks, we have
yet another vex All Star on this week. You know
him as a Nava Driver Award winner. You know him
as the coolest geography professor someone else's sport it's not his,
and you know him as your favorite vexolologist's favorite vexillologist.

(03:07):
It's Carlos moles D.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
What all of that for me? Are you sure?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm sure, man, I'm sure. And that was me pairing
it down. You have no idea what I started with.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Oh awesome, I'm sure, pages and pages right, oh.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, oh yeah, but yeah, honestly that page was mostly
your favorite vexolologists, favorite vexolologists favorite. Yeah. He kind of
went like that. So it was like a word count
issue with me.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Got it?

Speaker 3 (03:36):
God?

Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, So you made it even like a lesser thing
that it already was.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
So you're like, yeah, depending on how you look at it,
you know.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
I'll take it.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I'll take it anyway anyway. I mean, Carlos, how you been, man,
it's been been a minute.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
I know, right since last snab A meeting.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I think yeah, October of last year.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, knowing it, I mean, if I tell you how
how's it going? We're going to need another hour. So
a lot has been happening since that meeting. At that meeting,
if you recall, I presented the research I was doing
for my second doctorate, So I finished that.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
I do.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, so that.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Was that was keeping me very very busy, I can imagine.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yes, yeah, I'm so glad. Uh that is done.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Obviously, now the fun part begins because now I get
to start publishing the research that I did and talking
more about the results, which I'm sure we're going to
get to here, and also I'm hoping to present that
at the next novel meeting, and you know, just doing research, publishing, teaching,
coming up with classes I will never teach, but it's

(04:49):
still fun to eight curriculum like that. That's that's something
that I like doing, even if it doesn't go anywhere,
Like I enjoy part of career.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Just almost like a thought exercise of like where could
I take this?

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Right?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Right?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's like I even have my flag classes ready, so
whenever the university's ready, I'm like, here it is, let's
teach flags.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Hell yeah, right on? So all right, speaking of flags,
we've got a lot to get into. I'm gonna let
the listeners and viewers know what's on the flagpole today?
We've got our usual over and underrated flags. We'll go
in depth on how Carlos won that aforementioned twenty seventeen
Driver Award. We're gonna talk plenty of about his arts

(05:40):
based research in geographical vexillology and how he brings that
to the classroom again as mentioned, and have a couple
listener questions near the end. Buck Carlos, Before we get
into any of that, I do like to ask my guest,
what is the flag that got you into flags?

Speaker 4 (05:59):
That would be any flag?

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I think similar to geography, Like I've always been obsessed
with the geography, the same with flags, so I remember
always taking the social studies textbooks and just flipping them
to the back where you get them.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
I don't know if they're similar in the US, Yeah,
they are, Like we would get.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
The maps and the capitals, and you would get the
flags as well. But if I had to choose one,
it will probably be the flag of my town, San Sebastian,
my hometown in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Puerto Rico has seventy eight towns and each of them has.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Their own flag, and for the most part, the designs
are really, really cool, okay, and I think we have,
you know, one of the best designs, and those municipal
flags are everywhere, unlike in a lot of cities here
in the US where you only see it at the
borough or like you know, official buildings. Like the flag

(06:59):
of my hometown was everywhere, and we studied it at
length in school. And I would say either that or
the flag of Puerto Rico. As you know US Puerto
Ricans are really really proud of being Puerto Rican in general,
but definitely our flat you see it everywhere.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, but yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
It will probably be the flag of my hometown first.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Probably go into that a little bit, like, Yeah, I
have been to Puerto Rico one time. It was back
in like twenty fifteen, so it's been a minute, like well,
a longer ago than I'd like to admit, I guess
ten years. But yeah, like they are very very proud
of their local flags. I can remember, like you're saying,
like the it's not a huge island, but the different

(07:47):
like towns, municipalities, etce. All have their own one. What's
the one for San Sebastian look like? Yeah, and what
got you into that specifically?

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah, So it's a very simple, clean design.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
It split diagonally, so instead of a band splitting the
flag diagonally, it's like a wavy band because it represents
one of the rivers in in the town. And then
the top right corners red, the bottom left corner is green.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Dude, this is a very cool flag, right. I had
not looked this up. I intentionally a lot of times
don't look up the guests. That are the flags that
guests are gonna bring on. Wow. Yes, it reminds me
of a flag from somewhere else, almost, I it does.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
I mean it has the colors of the flag of Mexico,
So I'm not sure maybe that's the one that you
were thinking of, because it's also like basically like try
band with those three colors. But this one obviously is diagonal,
and then instead of a regular stripe or band, it's wavy.
So I've always been interested in wavy bands and flags

(09:04):
as well. I actually wrote a short piece for the
Vexcelloid Tabloid. I think that's how you pronounced it. Apologies, Okay,
it's the Porland Flags Associations. I don't know if they
call it like a journal a newsletter.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, yeah, In any case.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, So I actually wrote about some of these wavy
bands on flags specifically for some of the towns in
Puerto Rico, because San Sebastian is not the only town
that employs that wavy band to represent one of the rivers.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
So I think that's just the simplicity of it.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Just being exposed to it and learning about it at
a very early age is probably why I was even
more interested in flats.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
Sure, yeah, because we were really exposed to it.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
So, yeah, that's that's what it is, on top of
all the other flags, as I said, just flags in general.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I suspect that's gonna be a
commonality here.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
No, I've never seen the San Sebastian one. It it
reminds me like it almost reminds me of like a
continental Spain one. I don't know what it is about,
Like maybe it's the curvy river. Maybe I'm thinking of
the flag of Somora, which has like the the really
weird like it has all the penance. It's not like
one piece, it's green and red like that. Yeah, z

(10:31):
I m O R A. And but yeah, no, I'm wondering,
like what the Puerto Rican Like I guess relationship to
flags is like, because it's interesting to me the fact
that technically Puerto Rico is a commonwealth or a not

(10:52):
commonwealth a.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
Term.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
It is a commonwealth, but on the same sense like
Kentucky and Pennsylvania are, it is also a territory. So yeah,
it's a little bit more uh legally mysterious, I guess.
But like when you growing up in Puerto Rico, when
you look up and you see the flags, and I
know this isn't something we specifically discussed in our notes,
but I'm curious, do you get a similar feeling out

(11:24):
of looking at the Puerto Rican one as the American one?
Do you get do they both feel like a national
flag in a sense or do you feel more affinity
for one? And feel free to tell me to cut
all this.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
No, no, no, it's actually a great question, and it's
a good segue probably ten or twenty minutes from now
to the Driver Award winning presentation, because that's actually what
I did. I wanted to find out if Puerto Ricans
felt more strongly towards their town flag rather than towards

(12:01):
the Puerto Rican flag. And and well we'll get to that,
but at least for me. I do prefer the flag
of my hometown a lot more than the Puerto Rican flag.
I mean, obviously again typical Puerto Rican. I have that
flag everywhere probably Oh no, yeah, I do have the
Puerto Rican flag here, but it's more like the pride

(12:22):
yeah version. But I have the Puerto Rican flag in
my office and campus. I don't have it hanging from
my car like most people, but if I could, I
would do that. Yeah, But it's more because that one
is more recognizable, like people would know that's the flag
of Puerto Rico. But I do prefer the flag of
my hometown of San Sebastian, gotcha.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Cool?

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, And because we will get to the yeah, because
we will go back.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
To that later.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yep, yep. I have a feeling, all right, let's go
ahead and get into uh between the overrated and the underrated.
I usually let the guests pick which one they'd like
to start with, So take us away on either of those.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Let's get the overrated out of the way.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yes, I.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Am happy that I am a longtime listener of your
show and many people have chosen this flag before because
initially I was like, I don't want to offend anyone.
I wouldn't even say this out loud that I think
this flag is overrated. But then when I started seeing
more and more people come to your show and be like, no,
that flag is overrated, I'm like, okay, I'm not alone.

(13:35):
I can say it out loud. It's to me, it's
the flag of Maryland. Yeah, here in the US. Nothing
against the flag. Like I said, I love flags in general,
even if they're quote unquote bad or quote unquote good.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
The flag of Maryland is perfectly fine. I just think
it is overrated.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Like when I started watching your show and this was
a segment, I to me, there was no doubt in
my mind that this was going to be my overrated
flag whenever I came to your show. I don't know,
like I appreciate also how proud they are of their flag,
because I haven't been to many places in Maryland, but

(14:21):
I remember, like the few places I've been to, it's
also everywhere, so I'm like, oh cool, I like that,
but it's just too much for me. It's too much.
And I don't mind too much on a flag, but
it's just like too much and I don't bide too
much by flag principles. But the first thing that comes

(14:43):
to mind when I see the flag of Maryland is
no one is going to draw that by memory.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
That matter is.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
So complicated to draw it by memory. It's not complicated
design wise, but yeah, like that That's why I'm like,
I get it. It's a cool flag. I don't mind it.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
But also being voted the best state flag, I.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Was like, no, yeah, yeah, And that's like there's viewers
people that love Maryland and their flag, Like this is
all we're saying, like it is overrated. It's not that
it's a terrible flag. It's not the worst flag in
the US by any stretch of the imagination. But yeah,
like Carlos just brought up, like, you know, how's a

(15:30):
pen you're old, gonna remember how to draw? This is
where the counter changes are and where they like it's
needlessly complicated. I understand, y'all love it. I get why
you put it on everything. Yeah, but even when they
put it on everything, it's a simplified version of it.
Usually it's like a simplified version of the Calvert Cross
and the and or the Crosslin Cross and the Calvert whatever.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
But yeah, and thank you for bringing that up, because
I fully agree with your statement. We're not saying that
your flag is not a good design. We're not saying
any of that is just overrated because I do like it.
I think that last time that I went to Maryland,
I did buy a few things with the flag because

(16:15):
I'm like, I love it. It's it's really good. But yeah,
also being voted, it was voted the top flag, right,
I think last NAVA service.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I thought I thought New Mexico was, but I could
be wrong if not. I mean it was second, like
it's you know.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
True, and and again it can be in the top ten.
I don't.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I don't mind that either because it is a quote
unquote good flag.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
But yeah, it is overrated.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, I uh well, never mind. I can't be heard
on air saying what I was about to say. All right, yeah, no,
no great disagreement there. And as you've touched on, it
has been touched on on this show. So let's go
ahead and get into that was the overrated. Let's get
into an underrated one or two. I don't know how

(17:06):
many you have here.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, I think I gave you the main one and
then sort of like a runner up. And I don't
know if these flags are underrated, but when I was
thinking about underrated flags, I was thinking about probably a
national flag of a country that we don't hear a
lot about. If I didn't think at the national level,

(17:29):
then every single subnational flag would be here as underrated
because we're not exposed.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
To them that much.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
So that's why I kept it at the national level.
I give you Papua New Guinea as a as a
runner up, mostly because it's one of my favorite flags.
Anytime a flag has an animal or a map, I
will say it's probably one of my favorite flags. But
I would say the most underrated flag again based on

(18:00):
what I described, because I honestly don't know if it's
truly underrated, but it would be the flag of Kosovo.
It's a simple design, is clean, It has a blue background,
it has the shape of a country in I think
it's like a golden color or yellow.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
And it has six or.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Seven stars at the top of a map, so again
very clean. You can easily tell from afar that this
is the flag of Kosovo. And again, I just like
any time you put a map on a flag, I'm
gonna love it unless it gets too complicated. But we're
going to talk about with my favorite favorite flag. You're

(18:43):
gonna see a pattern with the type of flags that
I like, because, like I said, anything with an animal
shape or a map, I'm gonna think it's good. And
I know, if we go by flag design principles or
you know, trying to make sure that we can reproduce
this flag and not make it too costly, then yeah,

(19:05):
probably Kosovo is not ideal.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
But you know, I think it's the map just sold me.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
But then the simplicity of it, the colors that they chose,
I think it's such a cool flag. It's it's definitely
there as also one of my favorite flags.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, yeah, you say that one, Okay, Yeah, as a
as as an underrated Yeah, wildly underrated, I guess in
that sense.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, And I think it probably has to do with
the fact that Kosovo is still not internationally recognized by
a lot of countries as an independent country.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
So again, when I.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Was thinking underrated national level, what are some of those
countries that.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
We don't hear a lot about.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, yeah, is probably one of those, mainly because of that,
because there's not a lot of international recognition.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
So yeah, yeah, no, that that totally tries. Like I
also remember like and and you and I have like
a lot of overlapping like interest points here, like growing up,
Like my Atlas was my favorite book. I imagine it
was pretty far up there for you too, yes, and yeah,
we just go through that. And like at the time
I was looking at the Atlas, Cosavo wasn't even its

(20:18):
own separate country yet. I think it was still part
of I think even at the time it was like
Serbia and Montenegro was a country, and then I think
current Cosovo was like part of that. I can't remember exactly,
but it was like this was published kind of when
a lot of that was in flux. And uh and

(20:39):
you know, Kazakhstan's capital has changed like nine times since
then too, So yeah, oh well.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, I actually had a recent one.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
You're probably younger than me then because ours still had Yugoslavia,
so our textbooks didn't have all of these other countries.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah. I think mine must have been just after the
breakup of Yugoslavia and it was like early like I
don't know, ninety three, ninety four somewhere in there. Yeah,
but yeah, like probably ongoing Vulkan conflicts and stuff, but no, Yeah,
the Cosamo flag like it hasn't really gotten any shine
at all on here. I don't think it's been talked

(21:15):
about too negatively either. I mostly when we mention it,
it's because we're mentioning flags that have maps on them
in a sense of like kind of a UN peacekeeping
thing or something like, like when you think of Cyprus
and you have you know, Turkey and Greece that both
want control of it. Coastamo's like kind of finds itself
in a similar enough situation. We don't talk much about

(21:40):
maps on flags, and when it is talked about it, it's
usually talked about as a negative or as a like placeholder,
I guess, like a placeholder in the sense of, like,
once the UN is more settled on who owns this territory,
we may figure out a different flag type thing. But honestly,
I'm with you, I don't hate the flags. I've either

(22:00):
Coasava or Cypress. I have to say, I kind of
leand Cypress if I were picking between the two, But
I really like the gold outlines of both or the
gold shapes of both, And like the Coasto has got
the six stars, Like, yeah, I would say, definitely underrated.
It's a good pick for that.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
No, and you brought up a good point with I
forget how you phrased it already, but you said something
about having the maps there another reason why. I also
like when flags have maps on them. As an educator
and as a geographer, I always I'm always thinking of
ways on how to incorporate flags in my teaching or

(22:37):
trying to see, like if students could get something out
of it. And I actually did do a research on
maps on flags.

Speaker 4 (22:45):
So I actually did.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
A survey in a class in Singapore. Yeah, I was
still in Singapore doing my PhD. And I actually wanted
to see if students could identify the country by the flag.
So I keep I forget, uh which country specifically I
gave them, but I do remember I gave them a

(23:08):
historic flag of Bangladesh.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
I forget the year.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, it has the same as flag, but then it
has the country in the center.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, the country is outlined in gold within a red
circle within a g in field.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yes, And and I just wanted to see, like, Okay,
since the map is already there, let's see if they
identify the country by the flag or vice versa.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
Because I also.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Gave them some some outlines of some countries and I
just asked them, like to name the country if they could.
So the results were really really interesting that that was
a research I had a lot of fun doing and publishing,
because again, we don't talk about maps on.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Flags a lot now, Grant.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I think one of the first papers that came out
was from Mason K.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Tech Case. Oh yeah, I think it's like from two
thousand and six.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
So there were some papers out there talking about that,
but I feel like we haven't capitalized on that a lot.
And even after him, it reminded me there was another
research that came out. The author's last name is White,
and he actually coined the phrase or the subdiscipline cartographic vexillology.

(24:29):
So till this day, whenever I do something with maps
on flags, I have to cite him because he was
the first one that actually called it cartographic vexillology. And
as we're going to discuss, I am a sucker for
those subdisciplines and coming up with clever titles. So I'm like, yes,
cartographic vexillology.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
More on that, absolutely and perfect perfect Carlos. Speaking of
more on that, we are going to get into our
ad break here, our first one out of t When
we come back, we are going to talk more on
that with Carlos as far as like what he does professionally,
how he works all this into his classes, maps and flags.
I mean, you heard a lot of it here, so

(25:10):
stick around. We'll be right back folks. All right, Vac
said's we are back part two here more with Carlos

(25:34):
and Carlos before we get into what you do teaching
wise professionally all that. Wanted to touch a little bit
on what your favorite flag is because it may color
some of that for us.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, that one is easy, And I actually found out
that this was my favorite flag recently. Okay, so it's
the flag of Christmas Island for the reasons I have
already explained. Anytime give me an animal outline, not the
actual animal, but like an outline or a map, I'm sold,

(26:08):
and then this flag gives me both.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
So for anyone who may not know what this flag
looks like, briefly describe it.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
I had to write it down because it is a
little bit of a busy design. So it's green and blue.
The background is green and blue. It's split diagonally. It
has the southern cross constellation in the bottom left corner.
It has a white tailed tropic bird in the upper

(26:40):
right corner. In the center, it has a disc or
a circle, and it has the map of the island.
So yes, it design wise it some people may see
it as a busy design. I love it because it includes,
like I said, animals and maps. Before that, I was
also I was always telling people that my favorite favorite

(27:02):
flag was the flag of Niewhere. I'm not sure if
that's how you pronounced it, but it's a New Zealand territory.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Not sure either, but I know the one you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, yeah, I would only say that because of that
orange yellow color, like it's so pretty to me that
I was like, that's my favorite flag. But then recently
I reminded myself, no, there's another flag out there that
texts all of your boxes and it's the flag of
Christmas Islands.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
So yes, that's that's my favorite flag.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah. I am not gonna lie and at the risk
of outing myself as a huge idiot in front of
my listener based fan base and everything. The whole time
off air that we were talking about the flag of
Christmas Island. This of Christmas Island, et cetera. I was
picturing the flag of Norfolk Island because it has a
Christmas tree on it and otherwise looks similar. It's not

(27:55):
a Canadian pale, so forgive me, but it looks similar
to the Canadian flag. But if there was a Christmas
tree and things were great, I got so caught up
in the Christmas of it all that I forgot the
actual Christmas Island flag, which, of course I know, which
is this one that you've described here? And yeah, I mean,
oh my god, one a little embarrassed, but two it
checks like you said, all your boxes. It's got a

(28:18):
local wildlife, it's got a map, it's got a star map,
if you want to count that as two kinds of maps.
Like the colors are appealing, Like the colors are gorgeous
on this one. Like yeah, there's not a lot to
not like with this one. So yeah, yeah, do you
do you bring that in on like day one as

(28:40):
one of your Well, let's let's get going into that.
How does a typical uh, what's a day one class
with Professor Morales Ramirez Lake?

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Well, the first day is usually the boring day because.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Okay, what's the second day.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
I was gonna say, the first day is when you
talk about the syllabus and what. But yeah, no, even
in the first day, I do introduce myself, especially if
it's like a general education course like of course like
World Geography, for example, is not a course that our
majors necessarily have to take. It's more of a course

(29:20):
that's part of the general education that other departments can take,
and it is recommended for people studying education, which makes sense.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Sure can get a lot of education majors there.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
So in that first day when I introduce myself, I
do tell them my background, and I do tell them
that one of my lines of research is vexillology.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
And that's when they're all like, who do.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
You get a lot of hands in the air at that, Like.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
I immediately explain what it is.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
I think when I started teaching, I would ask them like,
do any of you know what vexillology is and you
know how it is?

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Sometimes like they're just like, just tell me what.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
It is, like it's the first day of class that
we shouldn't be doing quisit this early? But no, not now,
I tell them I do research with flags, so that
that definitely happens on the first day, other than of course,
the policies and stuff, but then second day and beyond.
It depends on what I teach. So I teach geography

(30:18):
courses that range from your regional courses, which are these
courses that are specific to a location, like World geography.
I teach geography of Latin America. Those are your regional courses.
Other than those, I also teach specialized courses. Our department

(30:39):
at Westchester University in Pennsylvania specializes a lot in environmental.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Geography and sustainability.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
So I teach courses like one of them is called
environmental Crises, which I love.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
I don't teach it.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
As a doomsday course, although it sounds like that it does,
So that be a good example of how I start
my class. That class will be a good example because
I tell my students, we know these things are happening,
So I'm not here to cause any depression, make you
feel bad, and that we're all going to die.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
We're not doing that. We already know that we're gonna.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
Ra this as a baseline.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yes what we We're going to.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Spin it into a positive What can we do to
solve this crisis or to mitigate it? Because some of
them we cannot stop necessarily, so right right?

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Okay? So yeah, and what all you mentioned a couple
of them there? But what all classes do you teach it?
They're all themed. I would gather around geography as a
central kind of theme, I guess.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
But yeah, yeah, so environmental crises. That one.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Based on the description and the title, it is more
generic in the sense that it's not necessarily a geography
course per se. But obviously as a geographer, I do
teach it from that perspective, thinking always about the why
of things, and you know, why this happens here and
not there?

Speaker 4 (32:11):
What is you know? The cost?

Speaker 2 (32:13):
And like I said, how are we going to mitigate it?
And things like that. This past semester I taught a
class called Introduction to Urban Studies. That one is also
very interdisciplinary, so it's not necessarily a geography course, although
it is in the geography department. Okay, But other than that, see,

(32:33):
and when I ask get asked what do you teach?

Speaker 4 (32:35):
I always forget because.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
I am starting to teach upper level classes now, more
so in the coming fall, I'm teaching environmental geopolitics, which
I'm really excited about. That one is more geography because
we are talking about.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Political power and.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Actually relates to environmental issues and environmental agendas within the
different governments.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
So that one is.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
More geography, but we have a mix of both yea,
because in general geography is interdisciplinary. It's very eclective, eclectic.
We touch on so many different things that we tend
to go a little bit beyond what geography is. And
then I have the standard geography courses that make you

(33:30):
memorize capitals and rivers, you know, the typical geography that
everyone thinks we do, which I always tell them too
in those courses, I'm like, I am not here to
make you memorize any of these things. And if I do,
it's for a reason, like I have a purpose. I'm
not just going to make you memorize like you know
where these mountains are and that's it, but.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
The capital of Kazakhstan is on any given day.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, My at list taught those things like if if
your students want that, they can go to that, Like
they utilize you for way more important stuff, I assume,
and uh exactly, yeah yeah, And I want to say
with them more geography is about.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
It's not about, especially in this generation in this day
and age, we have technology, we can look at up ourselves.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Right right, Yeah, it's the game has changed a lot
from you and I, you know, sitting looking through atlases
and stuff like that. But true, true, So how do you, uh,
how do you and in which classes? I guess do
you bring vexillology into the classroom? And does it help

(34:37):
you explain geography? Does geography help you explain it? I
guess maybe a little bit of both, Like how do
those go hand in hand classroom wise?

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Well, I recently started incorporating them. I just Scott officially
higher so now I am an assistant professor.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Before that, I was an adjunct professor. Congress, thank you.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
So as an adjunct it's a little bit tougher to
get creative. Not that anyone is going to be like
your fire because you're teaching flags and this is world geography. Sure,
but I think I was more aware of that, so
I wasn't incorporating flags back then, but I started now
that I'm an assistant professor incorporating a little bit, not

(35:21):
too much. Last fall, I think was the first time
that I fully dedicated a few weeks of the course
actually to vexillology and It was mostly because of the
doctorate that I was doing, because the bulk of the research,
actually the entire research, not the ballk, the entire research

(35:43):
was with flags, so I actually incorporated them in world geography.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
It made the most sense out of all the courses.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
That I was teaching, and based on what I wanted
the students to do, which was to design a flag
for any in place that they chose, I made sure
that I introduced what vexillology is. We talked about flag
design principles, quote unquote good and bad flags and how

(36:12):
that looks like. And then from there, I just wanted
to have them not only design the flag, but also
tell me via their design, how do they interpret the
concept of place, which is so central to geography.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
I actually touch on both.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Vexillology and geography in the sense that I wanted them
to follow those flag design principles, so that's purely vexillology,
but I wanted their design to have something geographical, so
that's when I wanted them to focus on how do
you see the concept of place or how do you
understand the concept of place through your flag design?

Speaker 4 (36:57):
And in the fall, I'm actually doing a different research
in human geography, and that one is going to be
a little bit of everything.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
I'm going to touch on flag designs, like what do
you think about your state flag and all of that,
And we're also going to look at similar flags. So
I'm going to use the Texas flag and the Chile
flag to see what do they think and they fly
one over the other. And I think in human geography
makes more sense to incorporate flags because we have an

(37:26):
entire unit dedicated to cultural geography, which, as the name suggests,
is all about cultures. Here's where you can bring things
like cultural artifacts with which flags are, So it's a
little bit easier, I would say, and of course, like
human geography to bring in flags specifically when we are
going to talk about culture, identity and just any geographic

(37:52):
concept in general. So a little by little I'm incorporating them,
not a lot. Obviously in environmental crisis there's no room
for flags. I mean, I'm sure I come up with something,
but yeah, it depends on the course.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Right, Yeah, that makes sense. What was it that you
called it human geography human geography? Yeah, like, uh, flags
could almost like could not make Uh what am I
trying to say? Flags make the ultimate amount of sense
there where human geography is concerned as far as like especially,

(38:28):
I imagine you're dealing with like population movement as well in
a certain sense, and like people carrying with them the
flags of their ancestors, their forefathers, their parents, their you
know whatever. Yeah, that could get into some really really
fascinating territory. And so going back to like you you
mentioned did you have your students design flags? You said yes,

(38:52):
and so what were knowing that there are no right
and wrong answers for that? Yes, did you have any
designs that really stuck out to you as being like
human geographically designed or just like well designed in general? Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, there were plenty I would say that were really good,
especially for what I was looking for, because some of
them got a little bit busy, and if you go
by the flag design easy to like, yeah, you're like,
they didn't follow them, but what they actually came up
with was really really good.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
So I had thirty seven students with the research.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I obviously had to get consent from them to use
their flag designs for my research. Yeah, so I made
sure that their flag designs were anonymous, so I didn't
know which student drew which flag. So that was really
cool too, because then you don't have any biases going
into this tr to be like, oh, this student did

(40:01):
this because of this.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Or even unconscious biases like yeah, yeah, yes.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
But for the most part, they follow flag design principles
as much as they could, and they incorporated things that
I was shocked, Like there was one flag that they
chose San Diego, California, beautifully done, and I will probably
present this at NO if my presentation gets accepted because

(40:29):
it was probably one of my favorite designs. It was
three bands, I forget the colors that were horizontal. The
colors were really nice. I think it was like yellow, green, blue,
They went really well together. And then in the center
it had an avocado because that is one of their
major economic exports I think, or they produce a lot

(40:53):
of avocados in the region. So obviously, at first sight
or first glance, you see it and you're like, why
you know, a hotto for a flag in the US.
But then when they explained it, I was like, oh
my gosh, this was well thought out, Like they really
focus on the details of the place and selected symbols

(41:13):
that really go well with the area while.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
Making the design very unique. And interesting.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
So that was one of them. Obviously, a few of
them got me. With the animals, there was a cute
one for an island I think it was in South
Carolina and they use a turtle.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
It was also like three bands with the turtle in
the center, but the turtle was front and center, so
that that was really cool. And the turtle was for
the biodiversity of the area, so you see how they
were connecting.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, that's what's so. Yeah, that's what I'm so
interested in is is, uh, if you're not going to
straight up draw a map of a county or a
city or you know whatever, Like what are you going
to do to represent the Yeah, like you said, the
biodiversity for one thing, among others. Like, yeah, it's just
fascinating the different routes one can take to get there,

(42:09):
I guess.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Yeah, And so there was a lot of interesting designs.
For sure.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
It must be fascinating, like being in your position and
getting to see, you know, thirty seven different minds pick
through that and like figure it all out.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Oh yeah, absolutely, there's data there that I can publish
until I die.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah. Yeah, plus that, plus you got that out of it.
Let's okay, So let's pivot slightly from that into your
So you presented at NAVA what fifty eight was last
year es in Saint Paul, and your presentation was largely
on this, as you called it, geographic bexolology via arts

(42:52):
based research. So you've explained to us a little bit
of what that is. But if you want to kind
of full fill in the rest of the picture or
rather and give us kind of, you know, just maybe
the thesis of what the presentation was about.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, and I am going to start. I'm going to
read so if I.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
No, absolutely, I trust me. I've got it up here too.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
So no, because I want to get this right.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
I want to start addressing that first part with the
whole geographic mexillology, because there is research out there that
has done something similar. I have been doing this kind
of research for a few years now. I think the
first paper that I published on what I call geographic
mexillology was like in.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
Twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. Not that great.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
I've gotten a lot better first draft, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
But in twenty nineteen there was a research public in
a scientific journal of Offers proposing this sub discipline that
sees the intersection of geography and mexillology, and they call
it vexcill geography, which I don't think it rolls off
the tongue easily. But I do have to acknowledge them
as well because again their article was published also in

(44:08):
a journal that had a higher impact than the journal
that I published mine, and back then I was in calling.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
It geographic mixollology.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
But they published this article in twenty nineteen that says
this sub discipline is basically the geographical study of flags.
The reason why I still go with my version of
it the geographic mixology, is because I want this to
be a lot broader than what they propose. What they

(44:37):
propose is great, I'm not criticizing it, but when we
talk about geographic mixology, I'm talking about studying all aspects
of geography and.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Flags and in flag designs.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
So it's a lot more broader than what they proposed
in this twenty nineteen article. I definitely want to acknowledge
that there are a lot of other researchers that have
done similar research. They probably don't call it geographic mixology. Again,
that was something that I came up with just because
I liked to streamline things, and I'm like that I

(45:10):
need to see like a name. So, like I mentioned earlier,
when I saw the cartographic mixollology that that author white,
and I think his article came out in two thousand
and seven. When I saw that, I was like, yes,
I'm always going to say cartographic mixolology moving forward, but yeah,
by no means am I claiming that this is an

(45:32):
approve or you know, a subdiscipline that exists.

Speaker 4 (45:36):
So I want to start by putting that out there.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Sure, but my thought process was more of let's study
all geographic elements on flags or all geographic aspects oh flax.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
And not be that specific.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
So for this research, like I said, I wanted to
see how students interpreted the concept of place via their
flag design.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
And this is where the art space research comes into play.
So that is the actual methodology that I used.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
So when you're doing scientific research, there are various methodologies
that you can choose. You have your quantitative ones which
are more numbers based, but you have your qualitative methodologies
which focus more on the actual experiences what insights are

(46:28):
from the data. And then I found out arts based
research while I was researching methodologies, and I saw that. Basically,
this is a qualitative methodology that takes into consideration the
creative arts and the art process, and it starts exploring

(46:49):
providing inquiry into what are individuals saying through art, through
any avenue of arts.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Okay, that's fascinating rather than just okay, yeah, yeah, go on,
go on.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah no, no, man, I'm a talker. If I go no,
it's let me know, reel it in.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
It's just fascinating to start from several different somewhat unrelated
vantage points, like starting from the art versus the geography,
Like those are obviously going to be like if someone's
just embedded in one camp and not the other, they're
going to come up with something completely counter to whatever

(47:30):
the other person comes up with. And I guess the
fun game or well a fun game. I'm not necessarily
saying it's what you do, but like to kind of
mesh them together or lean like be like, okay, I
lean toward the geographer on this point, because they've got
these couple of things right. However, the art on this
over here is really interesting and we can make it

(47:50):
say what we needed to say, et cetera. Like them,
I'm so interested in the fusion of those ideas.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yeah, a lot of opportunity within vexillology because and when
you look at art space research as a methodology and
you research what it is, I don't think they mentioned flags,
but then if you think about it, flags are art
in a sense. That's why I was like, this is
a perfect methodology. And I'm not claiming I'm the first one.

(48:20):
I'm just saying I have not seen research out there
that does the art spaceed methodology right using flax and
also within geography. To your point, it's interesting because I
also I'm not sure, I'm not one hundred percent short,
but I also don't think we are using art space
research methodologies and geography, or maybe if we are, it's
probably starting right now.

Speaker 4 (48:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
It's not something that is very common. So it's good
for both sides, for the Mexology side and also for
the geography size to try and incorporate this qualitative methodology.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yeah, it's a what can we learn from each other
type thing and make both our disciplines better.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, what was an experience?

Speaker 2 (49:00):
And so I've always said I'm a quantitative researcher.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
I love numbers.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
You go wrong with stats, I love stats, but this
experience was really really interesting, and I think more on
the vexillology side, it open a lot more possibilities of
the type of research that we can do with flags.
So I'm really really excited to explore more of the
art space, but also more of other types of qualitative methodologies.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yeah, absolutely, and just opening that up in general, the
type of research that we can do on flags with
flags to flags, you know, four flags, like you know,
name your favorite preposition, I guess, but like, yeah, no,
it is.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
It is.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
So it's something that that should have been interdisciplinary for
a while that I'm glad like you and a few
others are kind of like bringing into that world. Like
I mean, even just from like having this show, the
the interactions I've had are phenomenal, Like there's graphic designers,

(50:04):
people want to talk about the art of it, people
want to talk about the history of it, people that
are heads of organizations and just want to you know,
bring it all together and everything. Like there's so much
to this hobby that every time I think I've kind
of come to the like end of the rainbow or
whatever on it, I'm like, oh no, there's somebody doing
like a new thing. There's somebody using geographic vexillology via

(50:28):
arts based research, just for a random example, and like, man, yeah,
I love what you're doing, and I love how well
you synthesized it into your presentation at NAP of fifty eight,
which granted, I'm like the tech guy for a lot
of that, so I'm like kind of sitting behind the
presenter and I'm usually you know, I will see the

(50:48):
entire presentation because it comes up on the laptop and everything,
but I do sometimes like zone out when people are
speaking because I have to like tackle an issue or this,
that or the other. But like, yeah, now yours. I
was one fortunate to have to tackle any major tech issues,
and too just in rapt attention of because I was like, yeah, yeah,
like we said at the beginning, geography vexolology, these are like,

(51:13):
I mean, I didn't know the word vecciology growing up,
but I knew that I liked it, and just to
kind of have them all synthesize and have them all
taught and kind of like unleashed on the next generation
is awesome to see and hear about.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
But yeah, oh that's great, and.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
I appreciate that you were there focus and interested because
at first I was nervous.

Speaker 4 (51:39):
I'm like, this is.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Oh I can't imagine something new, So I'm like, I
don't know how the audience is going to react to it,
or even other researchers are going to react to it,
because it is something that has not been done yet
or to my knowledge. So it's like it was really
nerve wracking. I think that's why the presentation was ten
minutes too. If you recall, I do like a speed.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
Version of it.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, I was like, no, I really wanted to go
more in detail, but I guess I guess it was
more of those nerves of what is going to be
the reaction to this?

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Is it going to be too much?

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Because even with my presentation that I won the Driver Award,
that one was very quantitative, and I have the same
fear because I was like, are people going to understand
the stats that I'm doing and why I'm doing it?

Speaker 4 (52:27):
So, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
An interesting world to navigate, but it's always interesting to
see and hear from other mexiologies like you that actually,
like you were saying, every time you're like, oh yeah,
I've seen and I've heard this, You're like, oh wait,
there's more that we can do with flax.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, yeah, And I love that. I love discovering that.
And half the time I kick myself because it's something
that I feel like, damn it, I should have thought
of that, or at least like had the wherewithal to
actually like, you know, chase that to its natural conclusion
or whatever. But like, yeah, the.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
When are you presenting Andy? Come up? Come up with the.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
I don't not anytime soon. I was actually going to
ask just before we head into the next break, because
I do want to talk about when you did when
the Driver Award in seventeen, but before that, like, yeah,
what is nerves wise and everything. I'm just curious personally
me the difference between like you know, getting up and
teaching a class, presenting for a class, versus getting up

(53:28):
and giving like one of these which you've done multiple
times now, presentations for like Nava for in our example.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
I feel like it is different. For sure.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
I think in the classroom is more relaxed because you
are the knowledge expert and you're transmitting that is.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
What I was thinking.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Yeah, yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
You control it. It's more control, like I know what
I'm doing. In my case, I prepare well in advance,
like I want to make sure or that I know
what I'm going to talk about, and even if I
mess up, it's a little bit different. Not that at
a conference you can't say, oh, I'm sorry, that's not
what I meant, But like at a conference, they're more

(54:13):
going straight to the point, and I have to make
sure that I get my point across correctly. In front
of the classroom, you can always you know, stop refresh
or say actually, I don't even know where I.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
Was going with that.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
I do that all the time.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Yeah yeah, at.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
A conference, I don't know you could do that, but
you will normally don't do that. And I feel like
the nerves are different because now you're presenting in front
of peers, in front of people that, for the most part,
know what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
Yeah yeah, So again it's like what are they going
to think?

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Am I going to say something that's completely inaccurate and
then they're going to call me out in the QNA.
So it's a little bit more intense. I get nervous
in general and all situations, like even in this podcast
with you, I started very nervous. So I always start
very nervous in every type of presentation I do, but
then I get relaxed and I ease into it as

(55:09):
I go along, So that intro is always like nerve
wracking regardless of the scenario, but definitely at a conference
that those nerves at at a higher level for sure.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Yeah yeah, well, all right, speaking of that, let's try
and get your nerves back up over there over this
less commercial break here. No, no, no, I would have
a hard time doing that. I think, Carlos, you're just
too easy to talk to. But we are going to
take our third or our second break rather and go

(55:42):
into part three. After this, we will get into that
twenty seventeen Driver Award. We've got a listener question, and
uh yeah, we'll probably just give our plugs and kind
of wind down here. Stay tuned for that. We will
see y'all on the flip side. All right, folks, we

(56:14):
are back with part three here more with Carlos Morales Ramirez.
Uh and we had just finished up talking about some
of your talk at NAVA fifty eight, your presentation there
with the arts based research, geographical all that good stuff.
But you also won a Driver Award in twenty seventeen

(56:35):
for a different presentation. This was before I was in Nava,
so I'm not exactly privy to it, but can you
give us kind of a rundown of what that was
and how it went down?

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Yeah? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
So that was a short survey I did in Puerto Rico,
just asking people about the Puerto Rican flag.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
I had them draw the flag, tell me symbolist colors around. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
So.

Speaker 4 (57:04):
But also, and we talked about this earlier, I wanted
to also see if they knew the flag of their town,
because I remember we're talking earlier, how all the towns
in pert Rico have their flag. You even mentioned that
when you visited you saw those local flags. Yes, and
that's the case in almost every town. There's some that
are better than others displaying their local flag, but you

(57:26):
will see it more than how often we see it
here in the US in our cities or burrows or
anything like that.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
So I also asked them about their town flag, so
I wanted them to dry it, tell me the symbolism,
and then just seeing if they actually identified more with
the local flag. And I think you even asked me
this question earlier, or with the national flag, with the
Puerto Rican flag, And what I found was that most

(57:57):
people knew their local flag a lot better than the
Puerto Rican flag, at least symbolism wise. Why Obviously, the
flag of Puerto Rico is very easy to draw. It's
it's hard for someone to mess it up. But it
was in the symbolism that not a lot of the
individuals that I survey got that national symbol correct versus

(58:22):
the local one. The local one they knew. And I'm
the same way. I sometimes forget the full symbolism of
the flag of Puerto Rico, but I remember the symbolism
of my hometown's flag, and I saw that through that
survey that I did. And then just randomly, there was
like a third part of the survey that I just
gave them flags of Latin American countries to see if

(58:44):
they would identify them, and the flag that they had
the hardest time identifying was.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
Haiti, which oh, okay, yeah, in.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Actually I think that may be part of one of
the activities I want to do in my human geography
uh class in the fall that we talked about earlier
as well. Yeah, I think I probably have some questions
about the Haiti flag because as a researcher, Yeah, you
love it when everything comes together and you get the
results you were hoping for, or you know, you write

(59:16):
it and it comes up beautifully.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
But when you get that kind of results, that's when you're.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Like, oh, I should go that round now, I should see,
like what's up with the Haiti flag?

Speaker 4 (59:27):
What is making it less known?

Speaker 2 (59:31):
They were getting all the other ones right, I had
their Jamaica, Brazil, I think, Argentina, and they were getting
all of those correctly for the most part, but Haiti
was one that tripped them up. They were not sure
what flag that was.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
I think, huh, And this.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Was years ago, so I may be butchering my own results,
but I think probably like one or two individuals got
it right. Everyone else either left it blank or just
guess something incorrectly.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
And do you know, like I mean, I guess like
we might just be you're rising at this at this point,
but like, what would you attribute that to? I mean, obviously,
the the color scheme is a little bit different from
especially like a lot of Central America's like blues and
whites and really and really South America's, But you would
think in a different scenario that could make it stand

(01:00:19):
out and and be more guessed, whereas here it seems
the opposite is happening. Do you have anything to attribute
that to or are you just guessing like like I am.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
It's probably exposure to the flags. You know, if we
think about sports, for example, that's when we see slacks
were a lot more. Yeah, and then thinking what kind
of sports are Puerto Ricans exposed to that are more international? Well,
we all know the FIFA World Cup. We are getting

(01:00:49):
bigger in soccer now, football, soccer.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
And that I was gonna say in baseball.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
I don't know, a lot of other sports were definitely big,
but soccer is one that's now, like I feel like
we are paying more attention to it. Probably in my
generation it was like, yeah, we probably watched the FIFA
World Cup and that was it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Not now it definitely has a lot more exposure in
the island. No, but you're right about baseball.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
I wasn't. I wasn't. Well, I was just that soccer
is the main one.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Oh no, no, no, I didn't think that you were. I
just like when my brain goes to like the countries
that we're talking about and everything, and then baseball, I'm
like I couldn't name a single Haitian baseball player, but
Dominican Republic on the other island. Yes, I can name
Dominican baseball players. I can name Puerto Rican baseball players,
Cuban baseball players, like Central America, like yeah, so yeah,

(01:01:45):
if we are talking sports and baseball is bigger in
that part of the world than I usually remember, I
guess it is. Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
I guess you were going in two different directions.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
But yeah, we're getting to the same thing exactly. Yeah, yeah, ye.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
No, my point was similar to the point that you
just made, which is perfect too. But I was gonna say,
with the FIFA World Cup, we see the flag of
Brazil of Argentina, WI qualifies that that year, but I
don't think Haiti has ever qualified for the FIFA. I'm
not a sports person, but I try to follow the
big sports, the Olympics.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
FIFA and all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Same with the Olympics, like Haiti's probably one of those
countries that probably sense a handful of athletes to the
Olympics if they sent any, so it's like there's not
a lot of exposure to their flag in those international events.
So I think definitely that that could be a huge
factor as to why they couldn't recognize the Haitian flag,

(01:02:45):
but they did recognize Brazil and Jamaica and all of that.
To your point, yeah, with baseball, that was a good example.
We probably don't know off the top of our heads,
like a big baseball player. And even with pop culture,
it's a little bit hard to say, like, you know,
what's a huge pop culture icon that we would know

(01:03:07):
they do have them. I think white Cliff Jean is
Haitian if I remember correctly, it is. But again, we're probably.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Not too exposed to these individuals or.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Them being present and very visible in these international events,
which is probably why, like you know, they could not
recognize the flag.

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
It could also be the design too.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
A lot of the other designs are more clean in
the sense that when you look at the flag of Haiti,
the colors are very distinguishable.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
But then that middle part, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
So detailed that yeah, maybe maybe some individuals were like, yeah,
it looks like Haiti, but I don't remember that middle part.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Even like the funny part about like, since you mentioned
the Olympics, Haiti themselves didn't know that they shared a
flag with Liechtenstein until it was like one of the early.
I think it was. I don't know if it was
Winter Olympics or summer. I have a hard time thinking.
Haiti sends many people to the Winter Olympics, but you
never know. But it was somewhere where they got to

(01:04:16):
the same place as Liechtenstein realized they both had the
same flag. So Liechtenstein put the little like grand ducal
crown or whatever, and then Haiti put that that central
element that's like almost a square but frustratingly not and
uh yeah, so like yeah, even Haiti learned that their
flag was that Basically they're like, oh shit, were at

(01:04:38):
the Olympics. Somebody else has the same one. We gotta
change this, I guess, like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah that was that was really interesting
And I can do research on that, yeah, to see, yeah,
to get that concrete answer. So maybe next time that
I'm back on her show that I see you, I'm
gonna be like, oh, yes, now I have more data
that I can share and make it more specific. But
I think exposure is probably why they Puerto Ricans are

(01:05:06):
probably not that exposed to the flag, because we do
have large Haitian populations in certain parts of the island.
For sure, yeah, not obviously, we don't see the flag
flown that often.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Right, right, So you found they were most at least
in touch with their local flag, like local municipality, then
Puerto Rico then US, or were the Puerto Rico and
US kind of like even tier below that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
I didn't ask about the US flag.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
It was just a national flag and subnational flag basically,
so it's like.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
Puerto Rico and your town. And that that was a
bulk of the research.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
The guessing of the flags, that part for me, it
was more like fun, I want to see people, yes, flags,
But the bulk of it was draw the flag, tell
me the parts of the flag and the symbolism. So
that was like the bulk of what that research was.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
And then I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Ran some stats to see how representative was that, yeah,
and if it addressed my hypothesis or not.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Correctly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
I was trying to tag it back to prior knowledge,
so thinking if an individual had prior knowledge to these symbolisms,
then they would have a higher chance to remember them.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
Right, Yeah, that would makes sense. Yes, yeah, yeah, that's
that is fascinating. Can we expect a Carlos presentation at
NAVA fifty nine? Are you going to take a year
off for once.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Absolutely not. You know, you know that I will always
have something to present. I did send a submission. They
haven't announced who got accepted. So if you don't see me,
it's because it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
Was not because outside forces have conspired against us.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
No, no, no, I feel like every year they get
more and more presenters, and and there was one, oh
the year that we met in Philadelphia.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
I think that was the year that you and I met.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
That year, I submitted a present a proposal for a
presentation that wasn't accepted.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
I was gonna say, yeah, I don't remember you speaking
that year, so it must not have been no.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
But but they did explain, and it's a it's a
valid reason. They explained, we're trying to give new individuals
or individuals that are presenting for the first time and
have not won the Driver Award the opportunity.

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Yea. So I was like, no, that makes perfect sense.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
Yeah, you're gonna get Yeah, it's good to know there's like,
you know, thought behind it, or that level of thought
behind it and everything. But all right, man, well we've
got to like get close to wrapping up. I did
want to get to we had a listener question from
the illustrious Christoph Hook soaring even in our discord. He

(01:08:02):
wanted to he wanted to ask you to go into
tips for people without a background in academics and how
we can conduct research in a way that's scientific. So,
if we want to do what you do, but we
don't have the background that you do, how do we
do what you do?

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
Do you have enough time? Let me get comfortable here.
This is going to take some time.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
We can wrap some of it into the Patreon.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
No, And I think this is a valid question, a
really good question, because in vexillology, as we all know,
there's no official degree, there's no certificate or anything that
anyone can go and get. You can do what individuals
like myself and other vexillologists have done, which is get

(01:08:51):
a degree in a different area and than just do
the research about flags. But there's no set, like I said,
certificate degree that we can get. That was that's gonna
teach us how to research with flags, which is both
good and bad. It's more good than bad because that
means then more individuals that may not have that research

(01:09:13):
background can come in and do the research.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
Yeah. Yeah, So I think that that's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
I think just go back to your CA to twelve
education when they taught you the scientific method. That's always
a great way to start, at least so that you
have an idea of Okay, this is what I'm thinking.
I need a question, like what is it that I
want to research? What's the problem? Is there a gap?
Is there something that I haven't heard? Like in my case,

(01:09:45):
is a good example like I haven't seen this art
space research being used, or research with geography and flags
at least in English or Spanish. There is research in
Russian and Portuguese, but find that like what is it
that you're trying to discover or study?

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
Put together your hypothesis. What do you think you're going
to find?

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
That's always helpful to try to formulate that question. And
the question doesn't have to be something super formal and perfect.
It's more so that then you know when you're going
to start looking for your resources. So the key thing
when you're doing any kind of research is to base
it on literature. And by literature, I don't mean like

(01:10:32):
literature like Mark Twain or something is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
That weird that I was literally going to say, Mark Twain,
why did we have the same author.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
There you see think alike anyway, reinforcing to not do that. Yeah,
so when I say literature, it's more on what's been
published before. There are a lot of places where you
can find these articles, these publications, but obviously Google scholar

(01:11:04):
is a great start.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Yes, not enough people know about that, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:11:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so definitely Google scholar.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Not everything is going to be available in the scientific
publishing world. A lot of the scientific journals are hidden
behind a paywall, like they say, so if you're not
in academia or you don't have access to a library
that pays for these journals, you may not get these articles.

(01:11:32):
But still there are journals that are open access, meaning
they just publish everything. You don't need to pay, so
you will find stuff in Google scholar. So I always
say go to Google scholar first because Google scholar is
going to give you the type of resources that you
want in research. You don't want Wikipedia, right or we

(01:11:57):
can use a blog every now and then, but for
the most part, you know, you don't want a blog.
You want the type of literature that is based on
empirical research, on research.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
That follows again the scientific method.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
It's based on the literature, what others have done, and
it's employing these methodologies that are going to test this
hypothesis and try to answer your question, right, Yeah, so
that I think it's a good way to start.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
From there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
You would need to read a little bit more, especially
if you are doing that empirical research based on the
scientific method you would have to read a little bit
more on the methodologies, because if you're not familiar, you
may end up choosing an incorrect methodology, or not incorrect,
but a methodology that's not going to answer your research question.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Yeah, or that yeah, it doesn't do you any favors,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Yeah, yeah, But I'm the kind of person, like I said,
especially in vexillology, I don't think you need that degree
as long as you are following those steps, following that
process and making sure that you rely on that reliable
and valid resources. And every now and then, especially in mixolology,

(01:13:16):
you are not going to find that someone has published
something on that. It happened to me with this research
and art capace and geography, so there's nothing wrong with
using an article that's published on a website every now
and then, But for the most part, we do want
to make sure that everything is centered around the literature.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
That has followed a similar process.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
And again, just to reiterate, the only part that I
would say, as a non trained researcher that you would
have to put a little bit more time into is
the methodology. And that even for me as a research
I'm still relatively new to research. But for me as
a researcher, I still have to go back and read

(01:14:04):
on all of these methodologies. The art space research is
a good example. I've never heard of it before, never
used it, so I did a lot of reading, yeah,
a lot of meeting.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
With people that have done it. So also, actually that's
really good.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
Do rely on us and when I say us, I
mean all of us in this awesome world of exillology.
Researchers are non researchers alike. Definitely reach out. I don't
mind if you reach out to me for anything, because
even if you are an experienced researcher, we can always

(01:14:40):
learn from each other and you can bounce ideas, and
that's when you can say like, oh, yeah, this methodology
doesn't work, or I can't find something on this topic,
and you're like, but are are you searching this? And
then you have that aha moment you're like, oh, I
didn't think about that, thank you. Like, yeah, I always
also rely on this awesome commune that we have too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
Yeah. Absolutely, like the best research, like the greatest minds
in the world. What's it like the what's the Isaac
Newton quotes? Like if I've seen further than others, it's
only by standing on the shoulders of giants or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
It's like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
Yeah, research is a group activity. Learn from your elders,
be the elder to someone else further up the line,
like you know, did you No? I would never. I
would never. Anyway, it's time to get out of here.

Speaker 4 (01:15:29):
Uh, I hope I answer the question. If not, like
I said, I feel free to reach out. I can
give you more tips and tricks.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
No, I mean, to my mind, you absolutely answered it.
But I mean that's good. Yeah, people feel free to
reach out to Carlos as well, because you are nothing
if not happy to answer questions. So yeah, no, that's
a fantastic answer, a fantastic way to kind of excuse me.
Round us out here a little bit. And to that end,

(01:15:58):
I think it's probably time to move into plugs. So
do you have anything that you would like to get
some more eyes on, some more ears on anything at
all that you would like us backs heads to be
able to see.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
Not really, I mean always check in to see what
I'm publishing next, because I have a lot of different
projects that I'm working on. I mentioned with my upcoming
human geography class that's that's research as well, like it
already got approved by the university, so I will eventually
publish that. So always check to see what I'm coming

(01:16:38):
up with next research wise, because I always have something.
Especially with flax Is, it's so easy to come up
with research ideas and things that we can do. So
if you follow me, I mean, I'm not gonna plug
social media or anything like that because I don't think
I use it for research purposes, but just in general

(01:17:00):
all like yeah, just follow anything that I do. And
like I said, I mean it when I say if
you need anything, reach out. I don't know if we
can put my information somewhere there, but you can also
just put my name Westchester University. And I check my
university email very regularly regularly.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
Even right now in.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
The summer session, I still check my email regularly. That's
the best way of getting a hold of me. Like
I said, I don't mind answering question, getting together, bouncing
ideas off of each other, clears, and I always have
something new, and I can even throw three things at
you that you can do.

Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
So what about this? I want to do this, but
I don't have time, So why don't you do it?

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
No, honestly, that's the kind of push that I usually need,
is stuff like that. But yeah, perfect, if you're comfortable
with it, I can put your your email address here
on the screen.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
Yes, okay, absolutely, feel free to reach out.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
All right, yeah, perfect, I will do that. I was
also only other question I had for you was I
assume you don't mind if I put your your NAVA
fifty eight like paper presentation stuff as part of the
show notes.

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
Like the full paper, the slides, Yeah, whatever you need, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
Okay, yeah, yeah, because I have access to all that
from being on the tech team and everything like seven yeah, yes, yes,
so I have the one that start like Morales, got it?

Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
Yeah yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
Two? Yeah. Yeah. Because our listeners, like I think more
than a lot of listeners do tend to check the
show notes, especially given that it's such a visual you know,
flags are such a visual medium. A lot of these
strictly listeners, non viewers go and check those, and I
think a lot of the viewers do too. But yes,
so if you're interested in that presentation, go over there

(01:18:50):
and check that out, along with everything else that you've
seen and we've talked about here. As far as the
show's plugs, I'll say the same thing I say every
two weeks. It is our link tree. It's just linktree
dot com slash flagged for content all spelled out, uh,
and that will take you anywhere and everywhere you want
to go. As far as the show, you can uh

(01:19:12):
sign up to be a guest. You can sign someone
else up to be a guest and I'll reach out
to them. You can watch all our old episodes, see
my appearances on other stuff, all that good stuff. Lord,
I hate talking about this, but I do appreciate you
listening this far. And man, for everyone else who has
listened this far, Carlos their sol on my end because

(01:19:35):
I have no good way to close this out. But
if you've got anything at all, I would love to
maybe even like tag team an outro here with you.

Speaker 4 (01:19:44):
You got an absolutely you know what I'm gonna say.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
I'm gonna say, don't stop researching and forget cite your.

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):
Bags, perfect rhythm every time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Time that was insane, that was a perfect The definition
of it has been.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
We will catch you all on the fly side, other
than those we see on the Patreon, which we'll see
in just a minute. Catch you there like would have
gone like shit, oh shit, okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:20:23):
What two three?

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
That worked. Flags for Content is proud to be sponsored
by flags for Good. Go to flags for good dot
com for more information. Flag for Content is hosted, produced, edited,
occasionally written, and always nitpicked over by me Andy Richardson
Catch you on the fly side, bex Heads
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