Blog #12

This is sadly our last post, but happily our last assignment of the year. It was awesome getting to know all of you this year. Overall, I felt like I learned a lot about not just the countries south of us, but also about our own country from another perspective. There were many of the class which I felt could have been improved. Lecture were extremely long, although I know we had to cover a lot of material, it was just very one-sided and hard to pay attention for a full 50 minutes with minimal engagement. I also felt as though we had too much readings and instead of trying to read many things. We should have focused and digested more of one material rather than trying to rush from piece to piece; quality over quantity.
This being said, I still could appreciate the class as a whole and enjoyed this year with you all. Have a great summer and stay safe.

response to elena #11

This is an interesting comparison! I love how you compared the small documentary we had to watch to something very relatable and hilarious. I didn't even think about the contradictory role that Corning stone had, but it makes a lot of sense. I think it is very important to see women in these leadership roles because it brings a fresh perspective to the always heard male voice.

Blog 11

Since we are doing latin dancing in class, I thought I would do some background research on it. I choose salsa because it was the first dance that came to mind when thinking about Latin american dancing. This is actually pretty funny because Salsa originated in New York, not anywhere in Latin America. The dancing was strongly influenced by Puerto Ricans. There was a large Puerto Rican population at the time in New York that happened to cause this. They named the dance "salsa" because they thought the dance was a hot and spicy. In Cuba, there is a new form of Salsa emerging, it is called Timba. It is much more fast paced and has a strong influence from the Afro-Cubans. Cubans call their Salsa dancing "casino". Columbia has its own spin on Salsa too. Theirs is called " Hard Salsa". I found a funny list that describes the Colombian salsa:
1. Coz the dance floors are so crowded, there's no space for large spins.
2. The music's so fast that the footwork's gotta be fast and small.
3. Coz that's how Colombian's like their salsa
I personally am  a little nervous to do this dancing class, but I'm sure everyone will enjoy it!

response to leah's #10

Every time I think of Mexican art, I think of her lol! That's really interesting that she stood for wealth, I actually thought it was just supposed to be a skeleton for Dia de los muertos. political satire is probably one of my favorite things, because I love jokes and irony. It's actually really funny and sad to think that some people are so focused on money and the fact that the skeleton is so dressed up, even though she is dead and it means literally nothing now.

blog 10

Minimum wage is such a controversial subject on whether it should be raised or not. Discussing the conditions of the lower class in Latin american countries and if the bottom line for large companies is worth more than paying employees a little more. Poverty is an issue no matter where you go and it has real effects, not just some numbers in a chart or something. I do understand that it can effect small businesses, so I'm not saying I am an expert in any means, but what I do know is that minimum wage is not enough. Someone brought up in class about how the minimum wage shouldn't be increased because it's just teenagers earning extra spending money, but the reality is much more frightening than that.
 I have seen this effect so many people back at home. Many of my friends back at home could not afford to go to college, and I am not talking about just taking out a loan, I am talking about they could not leave home because they need to take care of younger siblings and also count as a second income for the family. I also worked at Burger King back at home, and many of my coworkers were in their late 20's to early 40's. I also would take the bus home with one of my coworkers who was a single mother, and she and I would get out of work fairly late, around 11:30pm and that really depressed me. Not only is she hardly making rent and getting food on the table, but she also hardly got to see her child. This is an awful image painted in my head because she just came from a stressful day of being yelled at by customers, literally cleaning shit off the walls and floor, customers harassing you, and dealing with very ignorant people.  Now, someone brought up the point that it would "inspire" you to do something more with your life and go to school. If we lived in a perfect world, that would be awesome! but sadly we dont, and life happens. My coworker could not take the chance of going to school to better herself, she had a baby and she needed to make money at that very moment so she could support herself and her child, but I wouldn't necessarily call it supporting. I really don't want to keep rambling on and on, but anyone who is not for highering the minimum wage, I really would like to know why? I don't know each one of your guys' back story, but I'm gonna assume that most of us live a fairly privileged life considering we are in school at this university. So, it may be hard to comprehend that not everyone gets that chance, or can afford to get a higher education. I really suggest you guys play this game  "Poverty game". I know it does not account for every factor, but it really does show how hard it is for a person to live off of minimum wage, and it does not even account for the stress of working all the time and wondering if you could pay your bills. So before you ask why a person should be paid more for "just flipping burgers", talk to people, learn what you're not experiencing.
Government Stats 2012

Blog 9

Yes ANOTHER political cartoon and more propaganda!  ha, but seriously you guys know that the best part of newspapers are the comics, so obviously cartoons are the best part of history. 

This is a pretty obvious comic, showing Cuba having a mouth full of missiles, but after the USSR was taking out the missiles that it had planted out. "This hurts me more than it hurts you!" is printed on the top. It is said in an ironic way, because obvious "Cuba" is getting their teeth ripped out and the "USSR" is just pulling out. I was trying to find out the real reason as to why it would hurt Cuba to have the missiles taken out. And then I gave it a thought for about .00002 of a second and of course the relationship with the United States was even more deeply effected. 

The cartoonist was Edmund S. Valtman lived in Estonia, which was occupied by the USSR which is why he and his wife left and went to the United States. I feel as though this can further drive the feelings of Anti-Communism, and also why Cuba is viewed as a victim in the cartoon and USSR as the menacing dentist. But his one comic that one a Pulitzer shows Fidel in a not so innocent way, although Cuba it self is.

Response to Caitlin's blog 9

This is an interesting point, never thought of it like that. I think that when reading the stories, it is more clearly defined to the general public because they are living through that situation in that time period. It can also show us a more relatable aspect to certain ideologies or theories. There are also so many literary and factual writing on what is happening through out the world for an author to just simply says what he means would be the same thing. It's simply like saying why do we use metaphors? It helps us understand something better or more deeply.
I do think it is interesting that you brought up the point of low literacy rate. that's an interesting point that I would like to know more about.

Reply to Amanda's blog #8

This is an interesting point, I was so busy trying to relate it to the history and place that I didn't even consider just an overall theme for his readers to live by. It is interesting how at first, before his death he notices very little, I mean c'mon he runs into a window! But after that, he notices the little things, like you said, like the dishes or how he is staring out the window. Or even how you said he is optimistic by calling his inconvenience an adventure and earlier in the story he feels like he is in hell. It's interesting how Borges displays this theme.

Blog #8

Sorry Guys, I need to post about this right now while I'm still heated....

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park by Diego Rivera is a beautiful mural that was done for Hotel del Prada in Mexico City. This was painted in 1947-1948 and this hotel was catering towards "gringos" which are white people. This was also soon after world war II. Many thoughts were flying in my head at this point, so i went to go talk to Professor Serrata about this and the overall message I got was the Diego Rivera really didn't care what others thought, so the idea that whites began the painting because he didn't want to offend whites was out of the question. This still was not a satisfactory answer for me, and I really could not think of any reason why Rivera would paint it like this. It is still bothering me, but I came up with a possible answer in my head. 
I dont think this mural has to do with Mexican History or so much as it's whole Identity, I do still believe it is a time line though. I think what Rivera wanted to do was to glorify and romanticize the ideals of the revolution. To further show this point he had to start from the darkest point in Mexican's history as a starting point to contrast and where in history they have progress to the where they are now and how they made it out of the dark time. If Rivera had started from the indigenous people, the effect of the painting would be a mash up of light to dark to light to who knows what. What I think was important was to show the beauty and AMAZINGNESS of the revolution and that is what is the important factor of this mural which I believe is a timeline to compare and contrast the bad from the good and why the Mexican revolution was successful, not so much identity or overall history of Mexico.


Not sure if I'm 100% confident with that answer, but it helps me sleep at night, LOL! :D everyone be safe and have fun during spring break... can't wait!

Blog 7

La Cucaracha

I decided to look up this song because my mom would sing this song all the time. Also when we would visit my family in Cuernavaca and have music playing and dancing, this was a very common song played, (mostly badly sang by the family lol) and after hearing the meaning of it in class, I wondered why my mother would say it so easily around children saying that this cockroach ha no weed to smoke (very strike when it comes to these kinda things). I decided to do some research about the evolution of the song. I could not really find to much except on wikipedia (so not so reliable), but it should different versions of the song, which I found interesting. So I called mom, and asked what were the lyrics of La cucharacha, and after listening to my mother singing and have my eardrums nearly explode, (just kidding! I love my mom!!!) I noticed that the last part where it talks about him not having any marijuana to smoke, she replaced it with no feet to walk on. I thought this was interesting an definitely an example of how there is an evolution of song lyrics/revisions.

Reply Ian's blog 7

awesome post Ian, I love looking at murals, I feel so small next to them lol! I actually did not notice it was both adam and eve on both sides, just at different times. I wonder why he made the snake into a human like being, could he be saying that humans have evil in us and we are the root of evil?i'm not sure because that does not go along the lines of the bible's preaching, i think. 
My favorite mural that I've seen(probably cause it's at my favorite place back home and spent all my summers there) is the mural at Oak street beach. It was made fairly recently, I was actually watching them paint it and saw it come together which was really neat. It has the face of Martin Luther King Jr. when you come from underneath the tunnel. then there are other random pictures of things, such as a mr vitner's chips and a mouth and a hand levitating popcorn, and other stuff. Really cool, hope you see a mural in real life soon, they're really awesome.

Blog #6

I thought I would do my blog this week on Emiliano Zapata because mom also is from Morelos, Mexico and I thought it would be interesting to find out more about him.

I thought it was interesting that although he was a peasant, compared to the rest of the people in Morelos, he was viewed as well of because of his family did not owe any debt peons for the land that they owned.I also found an interesting fact that he was a bullfighter (maybe that's why he was so good at leading a rebellion with his nonchalant feeling with danger). He was also elected a mayor of Anenecuilico, which I thought was interesting because before he was a leader in the Revolution he was already taking leadership roles. I thought this was all important information leading up to his lead in the revolution. To have humble beginnings and then lead is an important trait to a revolution leader because I believe this will help relate better to the cause and drive him further and be more passionate about the fight he leads. Also, being a mayor beforehand, shows that he knows how to lead people and be responsible.

Response to Leah #6

I love how included every definition of a revolution, very interesting. I thought it was interesting how you brought up the fact that revolutions do not end. I never thought of this and I suppose the societies we are living in are always evolving and people are always fighting for new reforms to amend their countries. Even today in America, I feel as if we are still fighting for freedom for all, which we were fighting for in the American Revolution. I really loved the concept of this entry, good job leah :)

blog #5

We talked about the Spanish American war in class. I found it interesting that nobody knew anything about it, including myself. My favorite part about looking at wars of the past is to see the different propaganda that circulates.

I thought this was an interesting one, because we did talk about how America tried to put the blame on Spain for blowing up the Maine, even though now we know it was technical difficulties. I tried to look up some proganda that was happening in Spain, and I could only find this creepy picture of Uncle Sam.

It says at the bottom to keep the island so it won't get lost. I thought this was interesting because you can see the people drowning in the ocean, but that's not what Uncle Sam/ America care about. America only cares about gaining more territory and it also helps Spain side because Uncle Sam looks really ugly and scary in the picture.

I sadly could not find any propaganda flowing through Cuba at the time, but obviously without a doubt there was. I just find the whole concept of propaganda campaigns to be fascinating because they are usually pretty clever and funny and interesting way to look at the history of our values as a nation at the time.

Response to Elena #5

I actually took AP Psychology in high school and we discussed this topic. The education system is very flawed when it comes to standardized tests, it is more of a profit gain than trying to gauge a student's intelligence. Most students in other countries do not start taking any sort of standardized test until high school. not only that, but they get much less homework, this is to keep stress levels down. In our education, we are expected to go to school 5/7 days out of the week, 7 hours a day. This does not included transportation. We are also expected to get homework done every night, join extracurricular activities, and get 8 hours of sleep? That is the most ridiculous formula for success if you ask me. There is not time left for relaxing, enjoying other hobbies, being with friends, or spending recreational time with your family. Also, because of this stress on time, many students stay up late and do not get the necessary hours of sleep and therefore not actually learning as much as they could from the day because sleeping helps with memorization of the days events. So yes, overall I agree we need to do something about the way America runs the education system.

Response blog 4

I also had this initial connection!! I did not make as many connections as you did though. I loved the movie with the party scenes, so awesome! The connection with Cecilia and Daisy was an interesting connection, with tom for daisy and Pimienta for Cecilia both yearning for someone they could never have because they are not high enough status in society, but are with men that are seen by society as more acceptable like tom/Leonardo. I also thought the movie was better than the book!

Blog #4

Throughout the chapters you can see Cecilia changing. As a younger child she is more care free not paying attention to social structures. She wanders the street like a peasant and pays no attention to what people say or think of her. As she grows older you can see she carries herself in another way. At the ball, you can tell she carries herself in a more "proper" way. She is a mulatto, but she has light skin like a white woman. This made her think, while growing up, that she was above darker skinned people. at the party you can see she does not give a second glance to the mulatto who drove her and her friend, who she also sees that she is above because she is more beautiful and lighter skinned. She also is not interested in José Dolores Pimienta because he is black and she was taught by society that she needs to look for a white man. This also shows that appearance also plays a huge part in society and beauty can get you recognized and noted. She is the center of the party because she is so beautiful and recognized by all the men, which she can easily take advantage of.

blog #3

Last week, we looked into the writing of Esteban Echeverría in the Slaughter house. I was very confused by the story and its meaning. I picked up the sarcasm against the federalist, but what threw me off was I sensed an overall theme of just the chaos of the politics of Argentina, including the unitaritans because of the metaphor of the bull. I saw the bull as a representation of the unitarians and in the story, the bull, in all its chaos, killed an innocent child. This caused me to think of how although he did use it to show the calluousness of the federalist, he also did this to show the effect that politics has taken because of their mass hysteria on each other. Obviously it was still shown that the federalist were in much worse light, this scene did confuse me when trying to decide if Esteban Echeverría was just showing the terrible side of federalist, or the overall disaster of Argentina's politics.

Response to Jacquiline's Blog 2

You bring up some great points that I did not even consider. I overlooked that passage in the readings about how it says they dealt with ones who were barbaric. The fact of the genocides that happened to the Argentinians is a great example of what does being civilized really mean. The fact that you brought up the Holocaust is interesting as a comparison because this travesty happened in Europe, so the fact of Europeans being Civilized is an interesting one.

mummy post

Hey guys, just stumbled on this and thought wow, this is really cool so thought i'd share it with you
national geographic link

Blog #2

The movie "The Jungle Book" has the song "I want to be like you". This relates to the reading because it talks about the monkey who is seen as inferior than the human boy. In this metaphor, the orangutan are the elitist of Argentina, and the human boy is seen as the Europeans and Americans. This can also be seen as the monkey will never be the human, no matter how much he wants to be exactly like him because he is a monkey and that will never change. Just like the Argentineans, no matter how hard they try, they will never be exactly like the United States of America, or like Europe. This is because they are totally different people, so what may have worked in Europe or the Americas, may not exactly work for the people of Argentina because of the different circumstances they are under.

Blog #1

Hi guys! It's Stephanie and I'm currently undeclared, but possibly looking into computer programming. I'm from Chicago and decided to come to Grand Valley for a change of pace. I miss my dogs the most since I left. I did track and cross country in high school and did a huge part in my school's ceramic/3d art department and love wheel throwing with a passion.
 I took Latin American Civ because I was never great at history, so I figured I could challenge myself by taking a civ class. I also am half Mexican, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about where my mom came from and more about my culture. I also thought it would be a great change of pace from the constant history of our own country that is repeated into our heads every single year.