This week we are learning about why liberalism never quite thrived in Latin America, and why perhaps liberal ideals were never fully absorbed and integrated into Latin American cultures and societies. As we learnt last week, the Caudillo revolutionaries had ideologically great ideas for the future of Latin America, included in these were: freedom, equality, …
Continue reading “Post-Revolution Latin America: Race and Acceptance In a ‘New’ Society”
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with acceptance, caudillos, colonialism, emancipation, indigenous rights, race, revolution
First of all, my favourite thing from this week’s reading was learning more about Cuban history. Where I come from, Cuba is demonized for its socialist background, and therefore, we know very little about it. I studied Brazilian history throughout my entire academic life and still, I was surprised to discover what a great parallelContinue reading “Week 6: Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics”
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with Brazil, Cuba, New Republic, racism, Sem categoria, slavery
This week’s reading posed an interesting comparison between North and South America. Initially, it seemed as though North America had some version of high ground due to the lack of participation in the slave trade in comparison to southern neighbors. Yet that seemed to be completely unaligned with the history I have learned about the United States. I found it really interesting how race and slavery were so intertwined. The United States created an impossible situation for people of color as their entire identity was based upon the history of slavery. When freed slaves visited Brazil they felt a better sense of equality than at home. I wondered what this actually looked like in practice. What was day to day life like for a person of color in Rio? While both were clearly immoral and abominable in the treatment of people of color it’s quite interesting to try and understand each country in the context of the other.
I also found it interesting to read Latin American feminist accounts. Growing up in the U.S. we frequently read suffrage narratives and responses and I found that they were remarkably similar to these accounts. In particular, I found the idea of poetry to be an interesting addition to debates about female rights. Poetry seems to mean two things, both the poetry that is frequently thought of as women’s education and also the idea that women have a sort of poetic way in which they carry themselves. Interestingly both authors write with an intrinsic poeticness, each piece heavily saturated with metaphor and imagery. Echenique has a more relevant argument, sighting the increase of capitalistic tendencies in society should motivate change for women who are less philosophical and engaged in the physical world instead. Pelliza de Sagasta’s contrasting argument was not what I expected; she argues that subservience is the natural way that women should exist. Unlike Echenique’s piece, she sources older authors like Sinués de Marco, rather than focus on the ways in which Latin American society was rapidly developing.
Race and gender are interesting points of comparison; lost within this is is the overlap. I wanted to hear from women in more marginalized communities if there were documents. Did the fight for racial equality outweigh the fight for gender equality? Or was there forms of resistance in both aspects?
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with gender, race
This week’s reading posed an interesting comparison between North and South America. Initially, it seemed as though North America had some version of high ground due to the lack of participation in the slave trade in comparison to southern neighbors. Yet that seemed to be completely unaligned with the history I have learned about the United States. I found it really interesting how race and slavery were so intertwined. The United States created an impossible situation for people of color as their entire identity was based upon the history of slavery. When freed slaves visited Brazil they felt a better sense of equality than at home. I wondered what this actually looked like in practice. What was day to day life like for a person of color in Rio? While both were clearly immoral and abominable in the treatment of people of color it’s quite interesting to try and understand each country in the context of the other.
I also found it interesting to read Latin American feminist accounts. Growing up in the U.S. we frequently read suffrage narratives and responses and I found that they were remarkably similar to these accounts. In particular, I found the idea of poetry to be an interesting addition to debates about female rights. Poetry seems to mean two things, both the poetry that is frequently thought of as women’s education and also the idea that women have a sort of poetic way in which they carry themselves. Interestingly both authors write with an intrinsic poeticness, each piece heavily saturated with metaphor and imagery. Echenique has a more relevant argument, sighting the increase of capitalistic tendencies in society should motivate change for women who are less philosophical and engaged in the physical world instead. Pelliza de Sagasta’s contrasting argument was not what I expected; she argues that subservience is the natural way that women should exist. Unlike Echenique’s piece, she sources older authors like Sinués de Marco, rather than focus on the ways in which Latin American society was rapidly developing.
Race and gender are interesting points of comparison; lost within this is is the overlap. I wanted to hear from women in more marginalized communities if there were documents. Did the fight for racial equality outweigh the fight for gender equality? Or was there forms of resistance in both aspects?
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with gender, race
This week’s reading posed an interesting comparison between North and South America. Initially, it seemed as though North America had some version of high ground due to the lack of participation in the slave trade in comparison to southern neighbors. Yet that seemed to be completely unaligned with the history I have learned about the United States. I found it really interesting how race and slavery were so intertwined. The United States created an impossible situation for people of color as their entire identity was based upon the history of slavery. When freed slaves visited Brazil they felt a better sense of equality than at home. I wondered what this actually looked like in practice. What was day to day life like for a person of color in Rio? While both were clearly immoral and abominable in the treatment of people of color it’s quite interesting to try and understand each country in the context of the other.
I also found it interesting to read Latin American feminist accounts. Growing up in the U.S. we frequently read suffrage narratives and responses and I found that they were remarkably similar to these accounts. In particular, I found the idea of poetry to be an interesting addition to debates about female rights. Poetry seems to mean two things, both the poetry that is frequently thought of as women’s education and also the idea that women have a sort of poetic way in which they carry themselves. Interestingly both authors write with an intrinsic poeticness, each piece heavily saturated with metaphor and imagery. Echenique has a more relevant argument, sighting the increase of capitalistic tendencies in society should motivate change for women who are less philosophical and engaged in the physical world instead. Pelliza de Sagasta’s contrasting argument was not what I expected; she argues that subservience is the natural way that women should exist. Unlike Echenique’s piece, she sources older authors like Sinués de Marco, rather than focus on the ways in which Latin American society was rapidly developing.
Race and gender are interesting points of comparison; lost within this is is the overlap. I wanted to hear from women in more marginalized communities if there were documents. Did the fight for racial equality outweigh the fight for gender equality? Or was there forms of resistance in both aspects?
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with gender, race
In this week’s discussion of citizenship and rights in the new republic, what grabbed my attention the most was the description of emancipation as a process. It is easy to think back about the dates you learned in school and consider them to be specific points in time when there was a sudden change, and […]
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with bahia, Brazil, emancipation
Have you ever stopped to analyze the national anthem of your country? That’s what this week’s readings made me do. “De la paz en la dicha suprema,Siempre noble soñó El Salvador;Fue obtenerla su eterno problema,Conservarla es su gloria mayor.” This excerpt of the national anthem says that El Salvador always dreamed of being in the “supreme bliss” of peace and how achieving this was an eternalContinue reading “Week 6 | Mutation of Emancipation”
Posted in Blogs, Week 6 | Tagged with Alexander Dawson, Citizenship, emancipation, LAST100, latin america, Maria Eugenia Echenique, rights, Traumas of the Past