Blog 12: The End

As I said in the beginning of the year, I decided to take this class in order to learn more about Latin America and understanding more about the country where my family comes from.  I have to admit that I didn't know much before this year, but this class has given me a whole new perspective.  It also stressed that fact that I learned nothing about Latin America in high school.  We covered so many different topics in this class that it's hard to remember all of them, but I have to say that learning about the Cuban Revolution was my favorite (no surprise there).

I've come to understand that history, as well as literature, are confusing, constantly changing things.  Throughout all of our discussions in class everyone had a different perspective about what they read or saw, and really emphasized that fact that point of view heavily impacts how a person sees something.  Before this class, history had been presented to me as the U.S. always being right and doing things to protect the people, but it didn't happen that way.  Through our discussions this year I have seen how perspective can change everything about a situation.

To conclude these blogs, I would just like to say this: we've finally made it.  The end of the year.  I have to say that I'm happy it's come, but only because that means the work is over.  It has been the greatest experience to work with everyone involved in this class the entire year, both professors and students.  We have created a great tight-knit community that is one of the best things about the honors college.  I've made so many friends and had so many great experiences: learning new things, dancing, Chicago, and late-night paper-writing parties in Hills (why did we wait until the last paper?) are just a few of them.  While all the work has made be want to scream at times, I have to say that I don't regret the choice to take this class at all  To those who may choose to take this class in the future, I don't think you'll regret it either.

Response to Grace's Blog 11: Pablo Neruda and "The Heights of Macchu Picchu"

Just as clarification, are you saying that Macchu Picchu was built with a capitalistic view or a communistic view? To me it sounds like the elite of Macchu Picchu were like the businesses of a capitalist economy where businesses earn high profits and the people get very low wages. The people suffered for the satisfaction of the elites and were kept in a low position in society. It makes sense that because Neruda was communist that he would be saddened over the treatment of the lower classes during that time and encourage a more communistic view to the readers as an alternative to the harsh treatment in a capitalistic society. If the natives had lived in a time with a more communistic view then there would hopefully not be such a large gap between the elites and the lower classes.

Blog 11: The Changing of Women's Roles

The documentary we watched last week about the changing roles of women in Latin America was very interesting to me.  I never realized how much the women of Latin America really sacrificed and dealt with in order to gain a better life for themselves and their family.  Especially the elite women of society.  To me it didn't really make sense at first that they were the ones protesting in the streets because it was the poor women who really wanted and truly needed the change, but the fact that any women at all were able to make such a difference at that time blew me away.

There was one part of the documentary that angered me a bit though.  It was when Pinochet's wife created a movement to encourage women to go back to their traditional roles in the home.  I believe myself to be a modern woman, and I don't judge anyone who becomes a stay-at-home mom, but I just believe that everyone should have a choice of what they want to do and shouldn't be pressured to be one thing or the other.  Women of the time had made so many strides toward changing their traditional roles in society and this movement threatened to push everything back to the way it was.

My real question is why did Pinochet's wife want to encourage women to go back to the traditional roles in Latin American society?  To me it would make more sense that she would encourage women to gain their own sense of power being a powerful women herself.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Response to Caitlin's Blog #10 Who Should Own the Art

I like the point you make.  It doesn't really make sense to have Mexican Art that was made in Mexico owned by a Michigan University.  The people of Mexico deserve the chance to see the artwork of their ancestors and see how their culture came about.  Important pieces of art deserved to be displayed were it will be appreciated.  But at the same time, if art work from different places did not travel itself, how would culture spread and change.  If you had to travel to Mexico anytime you wanted to see Mexican art, you wouldn't get to experience it as much because traveling is expensive.  The internet does make it easier to see art in other places, but seeing it in real life is a much different experience than on a computer screen.  If I were to have my perfect world, I would make large pieces of historic art circulate throughout the entire world so everyone could have the opportunity to experience it.  Preservation of old art makes that hard in todays society, but hopefully that can someday happen.

Blog 10: Hypocrisy in America

Sorry guys, this week is going to be a little bit of a rant.  Thinking back on past history classes, I got a bit of an impression that the U.S. involved themselves in places they had no place being.  After hearing all the different ways they were involved with Latin American countries really makes me see the point that they U.S. were hypocrites, and probably still are though I have no specific proof or examples.

Reading about the military dictatorship in Chile and how the people were executed and tortured based on their beliefs was really heartbreaking for me.  Families were destroyed and torn apart because members went "missing" and were never seen again.  The kind of pain of not knowing is something no one should go through.  It really upset me to know that the U.S. secretly backed the military takeover and supported the over turn of the democratic government.  I can't even fathom having an entire class of people almost systematically exterminated for no other reason than the military disagreed with them.  If something like that happened today, I would hope my government would go and try to stop it, yet the U.S. was the one to support the military and did nothing to stop the massacre.  The same situation happened over and over again in Latin America with the U.S.'s fear of communism leading them to overturn democratic governments in favor of militant dictatorships that would do whatever the U.S. asked.

We say that the U.S. stands for democracy and all humans have equal rights, yet we don't fight for those same principles in other countries.  How different would the world be if the U.S. had supported the democratic governments of Latin America instead of placing dictatorships in place.  In class on Friday we discussed the idea that the U.S. may have purposely kept the Latin American countries in poverty, and on some points I do believe that.  Whether it was completely intentional or not, I don't know, but the U.S. did take measures that would benefit them and keep Latin America in poverty.  By imposing embargo's and other restrictions on trade with Latin America, it kept them from expanding becoming more competitive on the world markets, and the U.S. could keep their power and security.  What do you guys think? Did the U.S. act to keep Latin America powerless?  Are/were our government officials hypocrites?

Response to Lauren's Blog 9: When Someone Says Freedom...

I really liked the point you made here! Everything that we have learned about the relationships between the U.S. and Latin American countries lately have led me to see the U.S. as hypocrites and childish. The government continually made decisions that benefited the rich foreign companies in other countries over doing what is right for the people. No one is allowed to tell the U.S. what to do, but we can go and involve ourselves in everyone else's business.

I was really intrigued by your point that the U.S. tried to turn the world against Cuba and practically ignore their existence. I came across this picture yesterday, on twitter of all places, and it made me think of this point. 

 Overall the caption of it is "George Washington Dunking on Communism" and you see China's communist leader being dunked on and Abraham Lincoln boxing out Joseph Stalin in the background. The U.S. classifies Cuba as communist, so why wasn't Fidel Castro put in the picture? The Soviet Union has ended years ago, but Joseph Stalin was in the picture. It just adds the point that American curriculum basically ignores the huge part Cuba plays in recent history.

Blog 9: Connections to the Past

So a lot of what we have been discussing in class lately has had to do with Cuba, and as many of you would suspect, I have made many connections.

A major thing I could make connections to was with how the level of education raised significantly in Cuba.  Before my Dad's family immigrated to the U.S. in 1971, my grandmother was a school principle with a masters degree from the University of Santa Clara.

Personally, I never realized how remarkable that really was.  If you think about what life was like in the U.S. during that time, there weren't that many women who went to college and got degrees, but she was able to do it in Cuba while the country was changing rapidly due to revolution.  Unfortunately the degree didn't transfer over to the U.S. at the time, but she was an educated woman and became a successful employee of the State of Michigan.

Another big connection I made was to the different Agrarian Reforms that reduced the amount of land a person could own.  Many of the different stories about Cuba that I have heard have dealt with my grandfathers family farm.  Recently he visited Cuba for the first time in almost two decades, and an observation that he made was that the farm had gotten much smaller since he last visited.  While I don't know how big the farm was at it's largest, it really drove home the reality about what was being done there.

Not many people realize how intertwined the United States and Cuba's history is in the last 100 years.  From "helping" free Cuba from Spain, to the repeated attempts on Castro's life, Cuban and American governments have been and still are entangled.  Cubans have also changed American culture in many ways where large groups of immigrants settled.  In places like Miami, New York, and even Lansing, the culture of the people leaves its mark forever.

Response to Caitlin's Blog #8 Assassinations

This is a very interesting story.  I am also surprised at the humanity of the assassins and how they avoided shooting into a group of children in order to kill Pancho Villa.  When you think of almost all other assassinations the shooting was done in very public places in front of many people.  Some examples I can think of off the top of my head are JFK, President Lincoln, and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  All three assassinations were done in very public places were innocent people could be injured, and some were.  But on the other hand, I can see why the assassins didn't shoot into the group of children to get to Villa.  For the first part, children are seen as innocent and not worthy of such harsh cruelty, which saves them from some cruel acts.  Another option is that the men lived in the town and had connections to the children.  Information didn't travel anywhere near as fast as it does today, so in order to catch Villa off guard, they had to be ready at a moments notice to get the chance at taking his life.  That would make it much more likely that the men were from that town and thus didn't want to shoot at their children or people that they knew.  Overall, I think there are many different things that could have kept the men from shooting Villa when they first had the chance, and unfortunately we will never know the complete truth.

Blog 8: The Countryside: Past or Present?

Something that seemed really interesting to me in our last discussion in class about the story "The South" was the idea of the countryside representing the past and the city representing the present.  Borges makes note throughout the story that "The South," or the countryside, makes up the past.  While Juan Dahlmann is traveling to his house in the country he watches as the city slowly fades away until he is in the countryside where the gaucho lives and the way of life there is very different.  He see's different things in nature that he doesn't normally see and it captivates him.  Growing crops was a way of life in the countryside where it isn't in the city, and that fact he knows nothing about it forces him to think of it in an unfamiliar way.  One of the greatest reminders that emphasize that the countryside is in the past is the use of physical violence to solve disputes.  In the cities, things are settled more diplomatically with the outside forces making decisions, but the countryside is forced to settle disputes however they can best do that, and physical violence was most often chosen.  Juan confronts the men that were taunting him verbally, and they in turn challenge him with physical violence.  It wasn't in Juan's way of thinking to immediately start with physical violence, but it is for the men from the countryside.  Violence and brute force are connected with the past because they were old ways of maintaining control and keeping order, but in the current time people had been perceived to have moved forward with a non-violent way of solving problems.

The idea of the country being stuck in the past brought up the reminder that many believe it still is today.  Farming is considered by a large amount of people as the old way of life, along with the ways of the cowboys.  While the farming industry has modernized by leaps and bounds, it is still given the stereotypical assumption that it is backwards and stuck in the past.  My big question is why that is.  Why does the countryside get the idea that it is the past while the city is the present?

Response to Lauren's Blog 7: The Underdog's final moments.

I had some trouble with the ending too because of how open-ended it was. To me it felt like from the very beginning that Azuela thought that the revolution was inevitable. The men were always fighting, even when they didn't know what they were fighting for. Demetrio was the leader, but didn't know what he was leading toward or why. That makes me think that it was inevitable because they were just fighting to fight. The end I saw as a more positive ending for Demetrio because he never ran from the fight and fought to the death, which is an honored way to die for many people, but thinking back on it now I see it differently. The ending can also be seen as another example of how the revolution was inevitable. Demetrio didn't know what he was fighting for but died for it anyway, making war an inevitable part of his life he could never escape from.

Blog 7: The Importance of Murals

While thinking about a mural I have seen before for last weekends discussion questions, I thought of a mural from Lansing (where I'm from).  Lansing has a large African American population, and much of the street art and murals reflect that heritage.  One mural in particular caught my attention because of all the famous people in it.

In the picture above you see two different murals, one new and one old, but they both represent the same thing.  The murals were commissioned by the owners to represent the Equal Rights movement in the United States.  The owners were proud of their heritage and wanted others to appreciate the work the people put into making the U.S. a better place for all people.  Some of the major figures include: President Obama, Michael Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Looking at these murals emphasized for me what the murals in Mexico did for the people.  Many murals now-a-days don't hold the same importance to the people with their subjects, but others do. This equal rights movement affected people of all classes and races, altering view and perceptions.  The same can be said about the murals in Mexico.  Artists like Diego Rivera, José Orozco, and David Siqueiros all used their art to convey messages to the people and alter their views on different subjects.  Whether they were country people or city people, educated or uneducated, Mexican murals affected each group in different ways, but conveyed a higher sense of nationalism to all groups.

I feel that this painting by David Siqueiros really represents the idea of the murals affecting all the people of Mexico.  In just the first row, you see soldiers, as well as a woman, who look ready to enter battle for the revolution.  If you look closely throughout the painting, you see the people wearing different style and colored hats, representing their different backgrounds. They all may have different backgrounds with beliefs that clash, but they come together to fight for revolution that benefits them all.

Response to Lauren's Blog 6: The Next Palmares?

This was a really great connection!  The aspect I can really see the connection with is the fact that both groups have leaders that die, but the people continue to fight for what they believe in.  The leaders were who got the oppressed people rallied around a singular cause, but even after the leaders died, their ideals were carried out by the people.  It goes to show that a group is only has strong as its weakest link, and one link can't keep everything together.  Everyone must be strong in order to achieve the goals of the whole group.

Blog 6: What do you fight for?

While reading "The Underdogs" by Mariano Azuela, I was moved by the speech Luis Cervantes  made to Demetrio Macías about what he was really fighting for.  Luis pointed out that Demetrio needed a broader view of the revolution and not to concentrate on making his part of the country better and fixing its problems.  Demetrio was focused on fighting what he thought was one man that had done him wrong, and in doing so narrowed his view to just that part of the country.  It is pointed out to him by Luis that things will never change for his people for the better if he doesn't fight the source of the problem and not just the leader.  New leaders with the same values will continue to take control as soon as the old leaders are ousted, and nothing with change.  

Luis's motivation is to fight the idea rather than the person implementing it.  In other words, he wants to fight the idea of tyranny instead of just the tyrant.  Luis encourages Demetrio to go and join the bigger revolution going on in the country because it will help the cause against the idea rather than just the leader.

This idea of fighting the idea rather than the leader is something I think can be used in many situations.  Whenever you are trying to fight to change something, it is always better to fight the idea rather that the person.  A person can change their ideas and minds quickly, switching from one side to another, but if you prove to them that the idea is wrong and not just them, it will be easier to accept.  In the end a nice life lesson can be learned from this: criticize ideas, not the person carrying them out.

Response to Stephanie's blog #5

I thought all the propaganda shown was really interesting.  It really drives the point that every situation, war, and complication in history is never as it seems.  Everything can be looked at from a different view point, and can be seen as good or bad based on that.  In reference to the Spanish American War, from the U.S.'s point of view Spain is the barbaric and ruining country because the supposedly blew up the Maine. While from Spain's point of view the U.S. is the enemy and barbaric group.

Propaganda in different countries can really change the course of war or other problems.  Without its use many people in the countries would not know what was going on and wouldn't support the different causes.  The support of the people can mean the difference between winning a war and losing.  In addition, propaganda can be used to sway the readers opinions to what the writer wants it to be, and not whether it is right or not.  That ability has lead many people to make bad decisions in who they support (a.k.a. Nazi propaganda).

Blog 5: José Martí

As many of you can probably guess, the topic of Cuba is very important to me based on my family heritage.  Being Cuban-American is special to me and it has been a wonderful experience to learn more about it's history.

I was very excited when we started reading pieces by José Martí because of how important he is to Cuban history and Latin American literature.  His idea of a "race less nation" intrigued me when we first read about it and after the debate we had in class really made me think about if it was really possible to have a race less nation.  As much as I agree with the idea, I don't think it will ever really work.  It will take centuries from now to even be able to close to being able to ignore racial differences because of all the history of mistreatment between the people.  Even in the U.S. today we may have racial equality so all people are treated  equally, but the differences between the people are not ignored.  An example of that is African-American Heritage Month, where people remember and honor those of African descent who have done great things.  Overall, I thought his idea was a very radical one and an idea that was needed at the time.  It may not have been completely possible to do, but it gave the people of Cuba the reason they needed to band together and fight for their independence as one.  Without that push history would have been very different.

While on the subject of Martí, it reminds me of one of my favorite poems he wrote that was adapted into a song of great patriotic influence in Cuba.  The first two stanzas are:

Yo soy un hombre sincero                            I am an honest man
De donde crece la palma,                             From where the palms grow;
Y antes de morirme quiero                           Before I die I want by soul
Echar mis versos del alma.                           To shed its poetry.

Yo vengo de todas partes,                            I come from everywhere,
Y hacia todos partes voy:                             To everywhere I'm bound:
Arte soy entre las artes,                               An art among the arts,
En los montes, monte soy.                          A mountain among mountains.

This poem talks of being from the land and feeling a sense of connection to place you belong.  It became a patriotic anthem for the people after it was adapted into the song "Guantanamera" in 1929.  Later, in was reproduced by a band called The Sandpipers in 1966 that became the most successful recording.  Many others have sang this song, including Celia Cruz, Julio Iglesias, and the Buena Vista Social Club.

My Response to Grace's Blog 4: Cecilia

As like many others, I love the HIMYM connection. I think its great that we can find so many little connections in the things we see and hear today. Your ideas about why Cecilia was pursued the way she was was really helpful. Since we have read the book by Socolow, I have been looking much closer into how women were treated in Latin American countries, and while we saw a lot of examples from other time periods, we don't know much about this more current period. My real question is whether the same values that were applied to women back in colonial society are used in this period. I would have to believe that the expectations of women would have loosened a bit, just like they have sense then, so do women have more freedom to do as they please? Mercedes runs a household and is very active in society, yet she is and has not married (that I remember). Women were not given that much freedom before, yet she has it.

Blog 4: Why Waste?

If you haven't noticed by now, I am the type of person who likes to compare what we are reading to things that are going on in this day and age.  By relating things to present day I am able to make deeper connections to the text and overall have a better understanding of both the reading, and why the issue is still apparent today.  Hope this makes some things clearer for you too!

One of the parts that stood out the most to me from the Cecilia Valdez reading was when Cantalapiedra forced himself to throw up all of his food that he had just eaten in order to be able to eat even more, just because he wanted to.  As many people know, the same thing happens in the book/movie "The Hunger Games," where the rich people of "The Capital" eat so much that it is a normal action to empty your stomach many times just so you can eat all that you want.  I find it quite horrifying in both instances that the people well-off in society are so wasteful and careless. In both places there are people of lower societal status that are going hungry and often starve to death.  People are living day by day while the rich eat and eat, all in close proximity to each other.

I also see that same connection in today's society.  While it is definitely not on the same scale as in the two previous examples, there is still a lot of wastefulness in society.  Everyday people, especially those of us in the U.S., take for granted that we always have fresh water and food available to us.  We go to restaurants and order more food then we can eat, where it then goes into the trash.  I myself am guilty of this, which disturbs me as I think about it.  People all over the world are going hungry everyday, yet we throw food out because it goes bad.  Overall, it really makes me think about how society has really hasn't changed over time.  Granted right now we do not waste food in that extreme of a way, but we make up for it in other places.  During that time, it was a socially acceptable thing to do, but as we look back we see it as cruel.  Many believe people nowadays to be better educated and successful than those of that time, yet we do just a much careless wasting.

My Response to Leah's Blog Número Tres

Thank you so much for looking up some of the music we have been hearing about in our reading.  I think music is a great cultural aspect that all countries have that makes them unique.  It also helps break down barriers between people of all different races and ethnicities.  All places have their own music, and like Sarmiento mentions when he writes about the Argentine and Chilean people, it allows people people to communicate without an actual language.  Music has a way of separating people and making them unique, but also making connections were they would not always be formed.

Blog 3: Violence

Violence has always been a large part of history.  There have been countless wars, genocides, and many other types of violence.  Today we even use violence as a form of entertainment.  While reading Echeverría's story "Slaughterhouse," the scene where the child is beheaded really caught my attention.  At first I couldn't believe it had actually happened, but as I kept reading my disbelief grew.  A child was beheaded amongst a large mob of people, but few stopped to recognize that a horrible tragedy had occurred. It showed me how little violence affected the people anymore because it happened so often.

That thought led to some current events going on in the U.S. today.  On January 22nd, a shooting occurred at Purdue University killing one man.  The gunman was arrested and is facing murder charges.  The police believe the shooter targeted the victim and it was an isolated attack.  My first thought when I heard of this story was "Another school shooting?"  Over the years there have been numerous school shootings and it has caused many to be desensitized to the brutality.

Just this Saturday another shooting occurred in a mall in Maryland.  The gunman went to the mall and opened fire within one of the stores killing two and wounding others before turing the gun on himself.  It was later discovered that he was carrying makeshift explosives with him at the time.

Within the last week there have been two public shootings, and unfortunately a sort of norm has begun to occur.  Just like in the story, people have become to used to the violence in our world and it doesn't affect us as strongly as it might have in the past.  To me this a very disheartening thought.  I've come to the conclusion that all "civilizations" are not completely civilized, even ours today, and that all have some barbaric characteristics.



More about the shootings:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/21/justice/purdue-shooting-report/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/25/us/maryland-mall-shooting/

Pictures:
http://abcnews.go.com/
http://www.freep.com/

My Response to Jacqueline's Blog 2

While I would like to say that the genocide of the Indians surprises me, it really doesn't. Considering that there wasn't racial equality in the U.S. until about 50 years ago, it is not a stretch to believe what happened. Latin America wanted "To be like you," meaning the U.S., and if problems still continued for hundreds of years after the genocide in the "leading country", then the elites would follow their example.

It does really make me think about who the real "civilized" people were at the time. Just like in the time of the conquest, the indians were looked down on as inferior because of their differences. The Europeans didn't understand the indigenous culture and thus declared the people to be less intelligent and below them. During this time, the same is happening because the elite still don't completely understand the indigenous. The natives in both situations did little, if anything, to deserve their treatment. So why are they the barbarians?

Blog 2: Civilized or Barbaric?

All this talk about "civilized" people and barbarians has really gotten me thinking lately about just who the real civilized people were.  Depending on who's perspective you look at, the answer is different.  The European view point sees the indigenous as barbarians because of their different culture.  Natives don't wish to modernize and change everything they have always known, and their reluctance to change causes Europeans to see them as unintelligent, and thus barbaric.  From the point of view of the indigenous, the elites of society are trying to force their ideas upon them.  The indigenous never do anything that today could be considered barbaric and morally wrong, but the elites of the nation still punish them cruelly.

So my question is, from today's standards, who is really the "civilized" people during that time?

Personally, I have always believed the Europeans and the Latin American elites to act more barbaric then any indigenous groups.  More often then not the European ideas somehow end up hurting the indigenous and their way of life, while the indigenous never do anything to deserve their punishment and cruelty.

Blog 1: Why Did I Choose Latin American Civilizations?

Hi, my name is Gabrielle Renee Gomez and I am a student at Grand Valley State University.
Go Lakers!

I also happen to be a part of the Frederik Meijer Honors College, and as my freshman sequence I decided to take Latin American Civilizations.  A major deciding factor for me in taking this course was my family background.

Half of my family is from Mayajigua, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, a small little town east of Santa Clara.  

In 1971, my grandparents decided to move to the United States with their three young children (my father was only six!) and make a new life for themselves.  My grandfather made the journey first to try and find a job and a place to live before he sent for my grandmother.  They came to the U.S. by way of Miami, but soon left for New Jersey, where their sponsor family lived.  At the time, in order to be allowed into the U.S. you had to have a sponsor family, or someone to help you get a job and get settled in the country.  They stayed there for a few months before my grandfather heard of a job in Michigan working for General Motors, where they eventually moved.  

Over the years I have learned so much about the food, music, and traditions of Cuba through my family and it has only fueled my drive for more information.  One of my favorite Cuban foods is frijoles negroes y arroz (black beans and rice), as well as flan and empanadas.  

I also grew up dancing to Cuban music, with its great rhythms and fast pace.  My favorite song as a child was called Guantanamera and was written by José Martí, a famous independence hero.

Hearing about my family's life in Cuba has always made me curious about my heritage. Learning about the foods and traditions from personal experience makes learning much more interesting.  The opportunity to learn not only about Cuba, but the other Latin American countries as well, in the Latin American Civilizations course was something I couldn't pass up.  While my major right now is Biomedical Science, I hope to minor in Spanish in the future, so this class has not only helped me learn about my heritage but has also helped with my Spanish.  I can't wait to see what we learn about next!

picture credit: http://www2.gvsu.edu/prowantj/02_gvsu_secondary_01.jpg;http://www.weather-forecast.com/place_maps/ma/Mayajigua.8.gif;http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/13642826.jpg; http://www.mynicolita.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/rice-and-beans2.jpg;http://www.los-poetas.com/a/marti99.jpg