Blog 12

I have learned more about history and literature in one year of this class than I learned in all four years of English and history in high school. I have definitely read more books in this class than for all of my English classes combined. Throughout the course of the year, I have become a much faster and more effective reader and have also learned how to better understand and analyze literature. Another thing I’ve improved on is writing. In high school I took online Medical English and I could get away with writing a paper the night before it was due…not in this class. Now, I have to spend a good week editing my papers.  Professor Stark and Professor Serrata have taught me so much and helped me become a much better student. They have challenged me to improve in all areas of study and have given me skills that will help me succeed in the years to come. I am so thankful for that.

This course has not only taught me how to read and analyze literature, but it has also shown me history from a different perspective. I did not really know much about Latin America before taking this class and some of what I thought I knew was wrong. For example, I really did think that Columbus discovered that the world is round and discovered the Americas. Now I know that during his time, everyone knew that the world was round and the Americas had already been discovered hundreds of years before. I learned a lot about the role of the natives in the conquest and how the colonies gained their independence and became nations. I learned the true meaning of a revolution. I also realized that I don’t know as much about the history of the United States as I thought I did. I didn’t know the extent of their involvement in Latin American economies and politics. We never learned about it in US or even global history. It makes me want to be more aware of the news and what is going on in the world today. Overall, I enjoyed this class and met a lot of really great people and I’m glad that I took it. Have a great summer everyone!

Response to Leah's Blog Numero Once

Leah,

I was wondering about those words too! How interesting! I wonder why Belli chose to use the word “Quequisque” if it is the Argentinian word. Wasn’t she from Nicaragua? And talking mainly about Central America? I wonder if there was one for Nicaragua and if so what made her choose not to use that word instead.  The trees also seemed to be located all over the Americas. Maybe her poem was more about all of the Americas and not just Central America.  The Quena originated in the Andes which are also in South America. And yes it looks a lot like the recorder that we had to try to learn to play in music class in elementary school. I wonder if the recorder was made after the Quena. Very interesting blog thanks for the insight! 

Blog 11: Another September 11th

Another September 11th

Every year when September the 11^th comes around, we are all reminded of the terrible tragedy that took place here in America on that awful day. I never knew that there was another country out there that felt the solemnity of a historical tragedy on that day as well. On September 11^th, Chileans don’t think of twin towers or plane crashes but of the overthrow and death of Allende. When I read about it in the book, I did not even realize how depressing what happened in Chile was but watching the video in class and the heroic but sad way that Allende died. It really made me think. I came across this picture that says “Remember September 11^th 1973”

There wasn’t really a description with the picture and I couldn’t find out who made it so I have analyzed it and tried to interpret it myself. The Year 1973 is much bigger than the rest of the date. I think that whoever made this did that to emphasize that there is another “September 11^th” that most people don’t think about. Most people remember the Americans who died that day but most don’t know that Chileans died too.  I did some research and found out that there was a controversy regarding how Allende died. The military said that he committed suicide but some of his supporters argued that he was assassinated. Years after his death, in 2011, international investigators concluded that he did indeed shoot himself with a rifle. The picture has the quote of his last speech right before he committed suicide. This is what he said, “Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers.” I think it summarizes what he stood for and what he was trying to accomplish; a better society and a better life for all Chileans, but especially for the workers who had been oppressed.  When I first saw the picture, I thought the man holding the gun was Pinochet. It looks more like Allende though. I don’t know why they would show Allende holding a gun. Maybe they were trying to show that he committed suicide? I am assuming that the red broken glasses are Allende’s after he died.  The background of the picture is this photo. It shows the military on top of a building pointing their guns at the presidential palace. After seeing these pictures and learning about the history of Chile, I will remember two tragic historical events on September 11^th.

My Response to Leah's Blog Diez

Leah,

I did not know anything about the copper mining process either. I cannot believe how much copper Chile has, almost a quarter of the whole world's reserves in just one country! That is crazy. Where is the rest of the Copper located?  I never knew how complex the process of getting copper and refining it was, your blog was very helpful. Did they use all of these complicated techniques when Chile first started mining copper? or has the process completely changed since then? Does the United States still purchase most of it's copper from Chile? I wonder if the copper from my pennies came from Chile.

Blog 10: La Calavera de la Catrina

I loved looking at José Guadalupe Posada’s artwork on Friday. After seeing all of his work, I wanted to know more about his Calaveras, specifically La Calavera de la Catrina. Calaveras are images of skull or skeletons. I thought that what Professor Keister said about his image of La Calavera de la Catrina was very interesting. Here is a picture of her:

 

 As you can see, she is dressed in extravagant fine clothing, and was probably very wealthy. He said that the message behind the print was that although you may be very rich and successful and have all of these great material things, when you die, it doesn’t matter; you are still dead. I decided to do some research on La Catrina. La Calavera de la Catrina was intended to depict social satire and commented on the political and social lives of Mexicans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. La Catrina was a high society Mexican woman. The image shows that everyone is equal in the end. Despite prosperity and wealth in their lives on earth, the rich are equal to the poor when they die. They can’t take it with them.  Posada made her during end of the reign of Porfirio Diaz. In a way, she symbolizes the Mexican revolution because she symbolizes the end of the power and wealth in the hands of few and the hopes to spread it to many. As Professor Stark was saying, she also became an icon of the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead, a day where Mexicans celebrate the souls of the dead.

I think that the message that La Calavera de la Catrina portrays is a very important one. Money really isn’t everything and when you die, it means nothing. What is more important is what you did with your life. It is more important to die knowing that you made a positive impact in someone else’s life than to know that you made lots of money. I think this is a lesson that many people have yet to learn. What do you think? Can money buy happiness?

My Response to Elena's Blog 9

Elena,

Wow! How interesting, I never knew the three wise men's names. I wonder if the author, Garbiel Garcia Marquez, choose the name Balthazar on purpose. Both men gave children gifts. In the bible, Balthazar is a rich man who gives to Jesus, whose family is not wealthy. In the story "Balthazar's Prodigious Afternoon", Balthazar is poor and gives a gift to a wealthy family. This is a very interesting connection though!

Blog 9: American Idot

Every time we learn about the United States’ involvement in Latin America I am always surprised to discover how much information has been kept out in our history classes.  For example, most of our history books don’t even include the Haitian Revolution.  While reading Chomsky’s book on the Cuban revolution, I learned a lot about the United States that I did not know before. Previous to this book, when I thought of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I thought that Cuba was wrong to bring the missiles in and threaten to attack us for no reason. What they did not teach us, however, was that there was a reason. The United States was essentially using terrorism against Cuba and they were merely trying to protect themselves from us. The United States sabotaged and destroyed sugar fields by bombing them and crashing planes over them. They were involved in bombing ships that entered Cuban ports and bombing or destroying Cuban mines. They also set fire to Cuban stores. All of these acts of terrorism and arson that killed many Cubans were done in secret. The U.S denied their involvement. Not to mention the many failed attempts to assassinate Castro.  As students, we were kept in the dark about all of this. Instead, we portrayed Cuba as the bad guy. This is just one of the many examples of a time where we covered up things that we did that were embarrassing and then portrayed the other country as the bad one. The song “American Idiot” by Green Day kind of reminds me of how we tell our history. Here are the lyrics:

GREEN DAY LYRICS

"American Idiot"

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind f*** America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along to the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

Don't want to be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's calling out to idiot America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

It may be kind of a stretch but I think there are some similarities. First of all, in a way, we can be “idiots”. We only know history from our biased point of view. We listen to what we are taught in school and in our history books and don’t question it. We don’t bother to get the other side of the story. We are influenced by the media and propaganda that is put out to sway our views to see things the way people in power want us to see them, “one nation controlled by the media”. I’m sure they did not put pictures of us bombing the Cuban sugar plantations up on the news and in newspapers. But I bet they put negative things about Castro and how the Cubans and Soviets were bad during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This created a lot of apprehension, “welcome to a new kind of tension”, “Sing along to the age of paranoia”. In a broader sense, I think that by trying to intervene in the politics and economies of many Latin American countries, we did much more harm than good. We only created enemies in the end and in a way, alienated ourselves from them. For example, Cuba wants nothing to do with us. We have, in a way, created an alien nation by trying to control other countries. Green Day may have been just trying to promote individualism through this song, but in my opinion, it can also talk about the way our history is portrayed to our citizens.

My Response to Stephanie's Blog # 8

Stephanie,

I was also confused about why a mural about the history of Mexico would start with white people instead of the indigenous people who had lived there thousands of years before the white people discovered it. I don’t think he did it to make the white people who would see it at the hotel happy either. It is very interesting that the left side of the mural is much darker and the right side with the revolution seems much brighter and more colorful. I think you’re right; I think it does glorify the Mexican revolution. Much of the mural depicts characters from the revolution. I think he wants to show the progress that Mexico has made and the benefits of the revolution by depicting the revolution as a bright, important, positive event.  Great analysis!

Blog #8: Dreams Vs. Reality

This week, I went back and re-read “The South” by Jorge Luis Borges in order to respond to our discussion question. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Did Dahlmann ever leave the sanitarium and die in a knife fight in the south or was it all just a dream?” The more I looked into it, the more convinced I am that he never really left the hospital. The most convincing quote is when Dalmann was on the train looking out the window and thinks to himself, “Tomorrow I'll wake up at the ranch, he thought, and it was as if he was two men at a time: the man who traveled through the autumn day and across the geography of the fatherland, and the other one, locked up in a sanitarium and subject to methodical servitude.” He talks about being two different men: one who is traveling back to the ranch (Dream) and one who is still stuck in the sanitarium (Reality) I think he is dreaming about taking a train across the countryside and reading his book but in reality he is imprisoned in the hospital dying. In the documentary on Borges, I remember the narrator saying something about the themes of Borges’s writings including the idea of dreams vs. reality. This story may be one of them. There are other parts of the story that also lead me to believe that Dahlmann was dreaming. He even says,“The solitude was perfect, perhaps hostile, and it might have occurred to Dahlmann that he was traveling into the past and not merely south.” In the beginning of the story, we are told that Dahlmann wanted to die like his maternal grandfather so I think that by going to the South, he is traveling back in time in order to die a romantic death. Dahlmann also saw some elements of the sanitarium on his journey to the South, “Once inside, Dahlmann thought he recognized the shopkeeper. Then he realized that he had been deceived by the man's resemblance to one of the male nurses in the sanitarium.” He thought that the nurse that was caring for him was the shopkeeper in his dream.  Last, the ending seems to me like he is dreaming his death. Dahlmann was challenged to a knife fight with gauchos in the south and he went out to the countryside fearlessly to die, “They went out and if Dahlmann was without hope, he was also without fear. As he crossed the threshold, he felt that to die in a knife fight, under the open sky, and going forward to the attack, would have been a liberation, a joy, and a festive occasion, on the first night in the sanitarium, when they stuck him with the needle. He felt that if he had been able to choose, then, or to dream his death, this would have been the death he would have chosen or dreamt.” He even says he would pick this death over dying in the sanitarium. In the beginning of the story, we are told that Dahlmann wanted to take after his maternal grandfather, “in the discord inherent between his two lines of descent, Juan Dahlmann (perhaps driven to it by his Germanic blood) chose the line represented by his romantic ancestor, his ancestor of theromantic death”. The knife fight is the romantic death that he had wanted to die just like his maternal grandfather’s death. I think Dahlmann used his imagination to change his destiny. What do you think?

My Response to Grace's Blog 7

Grace,

Wow, how interesting! I really enjoyed learning about and singing “La Cucaracha” as well. I never knew what the real meaning of “Yankee Doodle” was until I read your blog. I just thought it was a silly song that they taught us as children. I never knew there was a deeper political meaning behind the goofy lyrics. I wonder why we continue to teach the song even though it was used by the British to make fun of us. I wonder if the teachers even know what they are teaching their students when they teach them to sing Yankee Doodle. I also wonder if Spanish children sing “La Cucaracha” in school… probably not.

Blog 7: Assassinations during the Mexican Revolution

Assassinations during the Mexican Revolution

During Professor Stark’s lecture on the Mexican Revolution, he mentioned that in all of the assassinations that took place during the Mexican revolution, the assassins were unknown and never found. I thought it was interesting that the people said, “Quien mato a Villa? Callese y portese bien!”, saying that Calles was responsible for the assassination of Villa.  I decided to do some research about some of the conspiracy theories of the other assassinations.  Over the course of the Mexican Revolution, Madero, Zapata, Carranza, Villa and Obregon were all powerful leaders that were assassinated.

The Madero assassination was ordered by Huerta. The conspiracy theory is that he ordered the guards to shoot him as well the Vice President. They were arrested and the soldiers who were guarding them said that Madero was trying to escape and used that as an excuse to shoot him. Because everyone knew that Huerta was behind it, the United States even refused to recognize his government, despite the fact that their ambassador, Wilson, was involved in helping Huerta come to power.

The assassination of Zapata was ordered by President Carranza. Carranza sent Colonel Jesús Guajardo to arrange a meeting with Zapata and said he would give him more ammunition and supplies. Zapata was tricked and trapped. Guajardo’s men surrounded him and shot at him from the roofs of buildings.

Carranza was actually assassinated in his sleep. He was traveling from Mexico City to Vera Cruz when his train was attacked and he was forced to travel overland. A local chieftain named Rodolfo Herrera took him and his men in. Herrera supposedly shot him and his key advisors and supporters in their sleep.  Obregon put Herrera on trial but he was acquitted.

 

 

 

The assassination of Villa remains a mystery still today. His car was ambushed in the street by assassins and shot over 40 times. As previously discussed, many Mexicans believed Calles ordered his assassinations. Villa had many other enemies though. These included Obregon, who fought against him in many battles, Melitón Lozoya, who owed Villa a large amount of money, Jesús Herrera, whose sons were murdered by Villa, and many others whose family members were killed in cold blood by Villa.

I found the assassination of Obregon to be the most interesting. After Obregon was elected president, there was a banquet held in his honor. At the banquet, a young man, named José de León Toral, posing as a caricaturist drew a skillful sketch of Obregon and presented it to him. Toral pulled a gun out and shot him several times. Toral was a Cristero soldier who did not like Obregón’s suppression of the Catholic church.

 

 

 

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

I completely agree with you Lauren! What a great connection between Zapata and the Palmares! In both movies, people stand up to their oppressors. Slaves run away and form a fugitive slave community in Palmares. Peasants stand up and fight against rich planters and elites with Zapata as their leader. Even though many of the people living in Palmares are killed and Zapata is killed, their legacy lives on. They still bring hope to their followers. This makes it almost a happy ending which makes me almost happy.

Blog 6: Zapata and Women's Rights

While doing a little extra research on Emiliano Zapata, I stumbled across something very interesting. Zapata actually allowed women to join his army as combatants. He had large numbers of women fighting for him in the revolution. Some were even officers! These female soldiers were called “soldaderas”.  I did a little more research and found that soldaderas played a very important role in the Mexican revolution. They fought for both the federal army and rebels like Zapata’s army.

Their main roles were transporting goods, equipment, and ammunition, cooking, setting up camp, and caring for the soldiers as a mother or wife would.  They also raided bodies of dead soldiers for valuable goods. These female soldiers also served as nurses caring for and treating wounded soldiers. Because it was harder for women to defend themselves, many lost their lives helping the male soldiers. Interestingly, they also were used to smuggle ammunition and medicine to Mexico from the United States. No one suspected them because they were women. I wonder why they had to smuggle in supplies. Wouldn't the United States want to make money by selling supplies? Anyways back to women...

Zapata actually allowed women to fight alongside him in battle. I am surprised because this is not shown in the movie at all. They may not have shown it because they either did not know about it or there just weren’t that many battle scenes. Many Mexican feminists see women’s role in the Mexican revolution as a milestone in women’s rights. I think women should be allowed to fight in combat if that is what they wish to do.

 

My Reaction to Elena's Blog #5: Education in the United States

Elena,

I completely agree with you, I think the United States' education system definitely needs some changes. We were left behind about the United States’ intervention in Latin America. While taking this course, I have learned about many things that we were left behind about. Christopher Columbus is a great example. I was so confused to learn that he did not in fact discover that the world was round nor was he the first to sail to the Americas. It was common knowledge that the world was round in his time and the Americas were discovered hundreds of years before he sailed the ocean blue in 1942. Why are children still being taught that he made these great discoveries? Why don’t teachers teach history from both points of view? Our history is always taught from an eurocentric point of view and its biased. We are never taught the whole story. I have learned so much about history now that I know both sides of the story.

Blog 5: Marti

Today's debate inspired me to write my blog about the idea of a "raceless" nation. Image what Cuba would be like today if it had achieved Marti's goal of Cuba Libre and achieved true racial equality... What would a raceless nation be like? Some people like to say that the United States has achieved racial equality but I don't know about that...Yes we have come a long way but I don't think that we are quite there yet. Why does every job application, college application, and every other application for that matter ask you about your ethnicity? If race truly was irrelevant then why should that question be asked? I still think people are judged by their race and races have stereotypes in this country. For example, the twitter account "typical white girl" is full of stereotypes of average white teens. We stereotype people everyday with out even realizing it. Do you think it would even be humanly possible to create a raceless nation? Would it be possible for people to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the person they are? I wish it would be. I felt very strongly about supporting Marti in today's debate. I really love  his ideas and know that there is a lot of truth to them. We all have souls that yearn for the same things and in working together to achieve the same goal, we are united. One historical example of this is the way Nelson Mandela  used South Africa's rugby team to end the apartheid. To the South Africans, the white rugby team was a symbol of the apartheid, racial segregation. Despite the overwhelming majority's push to decommission the Springbocks, which had all white players and one black player, Nelson Mandela let them play and supported them. The team started doing really well and Nelson Mandela attended every game. The black South Africans began to support the team along with the white South Africans. The races of South Africa were united in rooting for the Springbocks in the National Championship. Now I know rugby is much different than a war of independence but it is the same idea. When people are working together and rooting for the same team to accomplish the same goal, they are united. I think that if the United States had not intervened, the people of Cuba would have been able to accomplish Cuba Libre. I think Marti makes a very strong point when he says that they both die together fighting and their souls rise up together. This sent a powerful message to Cubans and I think we can all learn from Marti. If these people were both willing to fight and die for something, they are worthy of equal treatment. I hope that maybe someday we can reach true racial equality and achieve a raceless nation.

My response to Elena's Blog # 4: The image of Cecilia Valdes

Elena,

The story of Cecilia Valdes was one of my favorites too! I was also disturbed a little bit by the way twelve-year-old Cecilia is described in the novel. I agree that the author used Cecilia as a metaphor for mulatto women in Cuban society. I think he also uses the story to shed light on some of the corrupt ways of the white elites. For example, Cantalapiedra, who is the commissioner of the district of El Angel, is at the party and tries to dance with Cecilia. He is portrayed as very irresponsible and foolish. He gets drunk and makes himself vomit in order to continue eating at the party. I think the  commissioner could be another metaphor for Cuban society; he represents the white elites. I think this story is full of metaphors about Cuban society.

Blog number 4: Spoiler Alert: this blog contains spoilers

I loved Cecilia Valdés because I love romance and of course I was curios about the ending of the love story. If you are planning on reading the rest of the story, don't read my blog. Cecilia ends up falling in love with Leonardo. The two become lovers but plot twist: Leonardo is Cecilia's half brother. Her father is Candido de Gamboa, a wealthy upper class white man. Leonardo is his legitimate son. Unfortunately, neither of them know this and they have a son. Later Leonardo leaves Cecilia for a white upper class woman, Isabel Ilincheta. They are engaged and plan to get married. Meanwhile, poor Pimienta is still in love with Cecilia. She has him assassinate Leonardo on the day of his wedding. Pimienta is then executed and Cecilia sent to prison.
 I couldn't help but notice some similarities between this story and the story of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. Both Romeo and Juliet and Cecilia and Leonardo meet and fall in love at a party. Both couples are not supposed to be together. Romeo and Juliet's families are enemies of each other. Cecilia and Leonardo come from different social classes. Cecilia is a mulatta and illegitimate child. Leonardo a white upper class man. They are also half siblings.   Both Juliet and Cecilia have other men pursuing them. Juliet is being pursued by Paris, kin of the king. She was supposed to marry him. Pimienta is madly in love with Cecilia and gives up his life for her. Both end in tragedy. Juliet fakes her death when Romeo is banished and he poisons himself. When she wakes up, she finds him dead and kills herself. Pimienta murders Leonardo for Cecilia and as a result is executed, and she spends the rest of her life in prison. The difference is Romeo wanted to be with Juliet forever; Leonardo left Cecilia for another women. Paris, the man Juliet rejected, was killed by Romeo. Pimienta, the man Cecilia rejected, killed Leonardo. Both are tragic love stories. I wonder if Cirilo Villaverde ever read any Shakespeare...

My Response to Ian's Blog 3 More Comparisons

Ian,

Wow! What an awesome connection! I completely agree with you that this story has a lot of connections to the crucifixion of Jesus. I think Echeverria probably did this on purpose. His story is full of symbolism. He connects the flood and rain to the story of Noah’s Ark, another biblical reference.  Echeverria also uses the runaway bull to symbolize the  trapped Unitarian. I think the similarities between the Federalist’s attack on the Unitarian was definitely another one of his clever allegories.

Blog Number 3

I would first like to start out by saying that as sad and gruesome as “The Slaughter House” was, I really liked this reading. I like reading short stories because they have a plot to follow and this story was different from everything else that we have been reading in this class. I hope we read more short stories, maybe even one with a happy ending. Anyways, with that being said, some of the things in this story just did not seem to add up to me. I’m still not sure how the Unitarian died at the end. When I first read the story, I thought he was beaten to death by the federalists, but going back, they never touched him. They had him tied down to the table and were undressing him and then, “a torrent of blood spouted, bubbling from the young man’s mouth and nose, and flowed freely down the table”. I don’t understand what exactly happened to him. Also, after analyzing the message of this story, it reminded me of something in chapter one of Sarmiento’s reading. On page 52, Sarmiento says, “all that is civilized in the city is blockaded, banished outside of it, and anyone who would dare show up in a frock coat, for example, and mounted on an English saddle, would draw upon himself the peasants’ jeers and their brutal aggression”. I wonder if he could be talking about the aggressiveness of the Federalists towards the Unitarians. The Unitarian came by the slaughterhouse riding a horse with an English saddle and dressed well. The Federalists were depicted as unruly savages just as Sarmiento depicts the people of the countryside. The Federalists taunted the Unitarian and were brutal and aggressive towards him. I think there may be a connection between the two.

 

My response to Leah's Blog Numero Dos

Leah,

To answer your questions, first, I agree with Alexis that most people think of barbarians as people who lived a long time ago. When I think of the word barbarian, I think of cavemen and sometimes picture the Flintstones. They are primitive people who lived at the beginning of time. Barbarians were focused on meeting the basic needs for survival: food, water, shelter, ect. They don’t use technology or modern methods to meet their needs; they are hunters and trappers. Often times, they are nomads and do not have permanent homes. That is how I would define a barbarian. To answer your second question, I agree with you that they could have tried to build some schools or churches despite the distance in hopes of educating the people of the countryside. However, I am not sure that all of the people would choose to change their ways to the civilized ways. The “barbarian” cowboys lived simple lives and may not have wished to trade their simplistic peaceful lives for the stressful civilized lives of the city dwellers.

Blog 2

This week, we have spent a lot of time reading about and discussing the issue of civilization vs. barbarism. The end of chapter two of Burn's reading really caught my attention. On page 32, he talks about how different Latin American countries dealt with the "barbaric savages" that were getting in the way of the progress of their civilized nation.  We did not really discuss it in class but it really surprised me to read this. Burns says that the Argentine government ordered their armies to massacre the Indians. They called the genocide the Conquest of the Desert and it started on April 26, 1879 and lasted until 1880. It was led by General Julio A. Roca, who served as the president of Argentina twice after the genocide. He ordered his men to clear the papas of the Indians once and for all. I was so surprised and upset to read about this. I thought that at this point in time, Latin American countries were moving towards legal racial equality and becoming more civilized.  It's occurrences like these that make me wonder who the real barbarians are. The so called “civilized” city dwellers went out and killed hundreds of innocent people because they were less advanced than them and they thought it was making them look bad? If these people are civilized and educated, surely they should know right from wrong. What made them think it was okay to murder innocent people? I think that the people responsible for the genocide were backward and uncivilized.  They killed the native elderly, women, and children. I think it’s so sad that tragedies like this are allowed to happen especially in the name of making progress. It reminds me of the Holocaust. Hitler tried to exterminate people that he believed to be less than him, mostly Jewish people. He wanted to create a perfect world with the race that he believed to be “superior” just like the Argentine government wanted to eliminate the people in their country that they believed to inferior and barbaric and create a perfect, superior, civilized population. It makes me sad that things like this happen.

Blog 1

Hello everyone, my name is Jacqueline and this is my blog. I am an exercise science major and hope to become a physician's assistant. I am fascinated with science and usually do well in math. History and English are not my best subjects so this class has been a challenge for me, however it has taught me a lot. When it comes to making big decisions, and even small insignificant ones, I can be very indecisive. of course, I wasn't sure which honors sequence to choose.   I decided to take Latin American Civilization and Culture because my best friend advised me to choose a class that not only seemed interesting to me, but was new and different from all of the other classes I would be taking for my major. I took some Spanish in high school and it was a lot of fun. We learned bits and pieces about the culture of Spanish speaking cultures and it was very interesting to me. I wanted to learn more about the history and culture of Latin America. I was especially interested in learning about the culture of the indigenous people. Latin American Civilization is not like my other science classes. This advice was excellent and I am very happy with my decision. Although this class can be challenging, I have learned a lot. I also really like everyone in this class :) Good luck to everyone this semester!