I found this week’s reading very intriguing because I am interested in contemporary issues and politics. The earthquake in Mexico was a disaster that killed tons of people and inflicted harms to economy in Mexico. The incident also showed flaws of the government due to its inability to handle the situation well and buildings that symbolized the prosperity of Mexico was completely destroyed. The destruction of hospitals, schools and buildings for government institution brought about another serious problem that tied with corruptions. A construction company closely connected to politicians did not use proper materials to build, which led to the huge disaster killing hundreds of people. I was not aware of this problem at all before reading the text and I was also shocked that a number of babies died as a result of the flawed construction.

Poor economic managements Latin America brought harms to those who were in lower class. As a result of recessions, spiraling foreign debts pressured nation’s budget and the problem often refer to as the “lost decade”. This was the also a phenomenon that occurred in Japan in 1990s after an economic recession. I could compare with my home country and Latin America in terms of economic conditions.

Although there had been a dispute whether capitalism was superior to socialism, the collapse of  the USSR proved that capitalism were more effective. Cuba was significantly affected because it was relying economically on the USSR, which created a huge hunger.

Nations that were in struggle could rely on the World Bank or the IMF for the  support. However, in order for them to accept aids, a nation had to embrace rules such as imposing austerity measures and free market without tariffs. However, this brought negative effects especially those in poverty or local farmers. These people opposed the measure because it signified decline in standard living. Especially for local farmers, they now had to compete against big companies with a quality and quantity, which was impossible. As a result, tons of farmers lost their jobs and migrated to urban cities for work, but most likely they could only find dangerous and low paid jobs.

In sum, I really liked this week’s reading because the problems still continue today and free trade such as the NAFTA may benefit the rich so much but increased income disparity. Since Canada has been part of the NAFTA, it is important to pay attention to harms that free trade could inflict upon.

For this week’s reading, I would like to concentrate on what happened in Argentina. Before reading the text, I would think of Argentina as a country in love with soccer. Argentina has one of the best soccer teams in the world and often play for the World Cups. However, after reading about Madres de la Plaza Mayo, my impression toward Argentina completely changed. The movement Madres de la Plaza de Mayo was a political movement comprised of mothers who had claimed that their children were kidnapped by the authority. In 1977, a small group of women gathered at the Plaza de Mayo and demanded information about their missing children.  In the beginning, their movement was not disturbed even though any political movement was banned, and the authority thought that their movement was not a threat. However, as the movement enlarged with the aid from foreign journalist, the authority started to block the movement and dispatched a secret police. While I was reading the text, I was surprised that it was a group of women who stood up against the dictatorship even though they could be hurt potentially in the future. Especially when dead corpses arrived near the beach of Mar del Plata, other countries started to gain more interest in event in Argentina.

The authoritarian government of Argentina tried to divert people’s anger to external by attempting to seize Falkland island, which is part of the UK. However, this war was a complete failure, which augmented the anger and sparked massive protest. Hence, the government responded by promising a democratic society in 1983. It was intriguing to read about invasion of Falkland island because this was something I had known before reading, but I was not sure about the full context behind the war and always looked for an opportunity to learn.

In this term, I happened to learn about some social movements in other classes, and I was surprised to learn about women’s contribution in the movement. I always thought that men were the main characters of the movement, but because of various feminist movements and Madres de la Plaza Mayo I was able to learn the importance of women’s participation and their achievements. In sum, my image toward Argentina drastically changed and by learning dark side of Argentinean history, I believe that I have better understanding of it and judging it objectively.

This week’s reading allowed me to understand a situation in Latin America, where civil wars and political and economical stabilities were present. Guerrilla groups organized and took violent actions to oppose right wing government. Peru, for instance, had the largest armed insurgents in Latin America and they differed from other groups in terms of finance. The conflict occurred due to struggles between a Marxist left and a free market right. The civil war  in Peru had some similarities with Guatemala and Columbia in which they showed capacity to take over vast territories for short time. However, the most intriguing thing was how armed insurgents in Peru was able to resist for long time. Unlike other guerrilla forces in Latin America, where they did not have a stable source of income, Sendero Luminoso, armed insurgents in Peru, had a reliable source of income, which was cocain trades. As a result, they could better arm themselves and continue a war against well equipped government troops.

Until, Alberto Fujimori was inaugurated as the president of Peru, the country was in a constant instability. However, when he took over the power, he managed to weaken Senderos, even though some people criticize him for adopting fee market system, in which it destroyed the domestic economy and manufacturer. In addition, because of that, income disparity grew even more and cutting a budget for social welfare created a huge discontent among lower class. The president Fujimori took measures to attack the guerrilla group by expanding National Intelligence Service to go after terrorists. Alienated by his brutality and total destruction, Senderos were significantly weakened by 1990s. As a result many people admired and thought him as a savior of the nation especially after capturing the president Gonzalo, the leader of Sendero. In my opinion, he certainly inflicted struggles to lower classes due to his economy policy, but he should definitely receive some credits for destroying Senderos.

In sum, Latin America was a proxy war between America and the Soviet Union and civil wars and unstable politics created violent guerrilla forces such as Sendero Luminos.

This week’s reading mainly focussed on how technology such as radio helped to deliver messages and gathered people. The radio seemed to play powerful role in displaying not only different arts like music and samba, but also stating politics. In Brazil, even though Getúlio Vargas turned out to promise various things but failed to deliver, he was one of the earliest politician who understood the power and utility of radio. I was surprised that radios already existed in Brazil as early as 1930s. In the beginning, there were about 20 stations, but by the end of 1950s, more than 100 stations were built. Moreover, 85% of households in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro owned a radio and many people were exposed to commercial tv. Because a large number of people had communication tools, Vargas set up national radio station to promote good works done by the government. Hence, the Hora do Brazil or Brazil Hour was broadcasted. This program was widely ridiculed by people and often ignored. In addition, he tried to connect people with his idea, Estado Novo (the New State), but he failed at the end. Federal officials attempted to suit the samba for nationalist purposes in order to increase patriotic feelings. Fans simply rejected the official samba and looked for what they liked.

Using technology to control people can also be noticed in Europe by Nazi Germany. Hitler effectively used radios and censored newspaper to brainwash people in Germany and his plan worked well as opposed to Vargas. This was something that came up in my mind while I was reading the text. However, censoring newspaper and controlling radio are not enough to brainwash people because we have the internet. Although the internet can be censored like in China, it is much more difficult to do so compared to radio and newspapers. The internet allows people to look for whatever they want and can easily know what is happening outside of one’s country.

In sum, this week’s reading enabled me to understand the emergence of technologies such as radio and how that help politicians and people’s life in general.

This week’s reading started off by stating that not many people benefited from economic growth, and it was characterized negatively. For instance, people faced a loss of rights, land, and autonomy and people in Latin America were under constant threat from North America. As the book quoted, “One person’s boom was always another’s crisis”, which I think was the best expression to describe the situation and intriguing phrases at the same time.

Jose Marti’s essay, Our America, was trying to alert people that they have to unite to fight against North American threat. Even though he was raised to believe in the progress, but he observed that progress as a new era of outside domination. In addition, he believed that poor people suffered even more as a result of export boom. I thought that his essay was intriguing because it portrayed the situation at that time. As part of modernity, railroad construction began, but it created a minor conflict with rural groups. They had to be removed from the construction site, but Porfirio Diaz did not managed to remove them peacefully. As a result, this led to violence using police.

When Porfirio Diaz won the election by sending Francisco Madero into jail, middle class people started to uproar. Madero managed to overthrow the government by use of arms and thought that Mexican revolution was over. However, collapse of his government resulted in civil war and I could notice that these two people were corrupted and did not managed to administer the country well. While the country was in the mess, peasant army of Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata converged to Mexico City. They were aiming to take back stole lands and liberties from Mexican Government.

Finally, I found it interesting to read about Argentina’s number of attracted immigration, 800000. They formed great part of working classes in there and by 1914 foreign born consisted almost 70% of skilled workers, which I think brings positive effect to Argentina. However, they were not able to vote and their action was limited. This came from distrust towards immigrants because they “spoke foreign tongues, ate alien food, did not celebrate the national traditions or owe any loyalty to Argentina”. This is something that is still present in my opinion. Especially with countries in Europe, immigrants may be seen as aliens because they do not share common belief. As a result, they often receive criticism and discrimination during economic crisis because people think immigrants are stealing jobs. Various misunderstandings comes from not knowing the people fully.

This week’s reading started off by stating how countries transformed as one of the modern state in Latin America. In Mexico, modern infrastructures such as complex buildings and railroads were built and managed to eradicate the threat of Malaria. Other parts of Latin America underwent similar transformation. After abolishing slavery and caste systems, Latin America flourished through global trade especially by exporting raw materials such as copper and silver. These resources were exported to wealthy state in North such as the US and the demand was going up. Even though the economy seemed to be fine, but Milton Friedman said the export boom was increasing the economic dependency and foreign investors were attempting to monopolize Latin America’s wealth. In addition, disparity between rich and poor grew larger. I believe that this problem still exists today around the world. Various countries in the world rely heavily on export because their domestic market is not big enough. As a result, economic dependency increases, which may lead to economic crisis as the book also pointed out.

Order and Progress was also interesting to read because I could understand it was very important in modernization. Elites thought that order was necessary in order to modernize, otherwise it would become impossible. At the same time, they believed that democracy was not an ideal way to rule the country because people were not smart enough to exercise democratic rights.

As I was reading the book, I found it intriguing to read about the statement of Raul Prebisch, an economist from Argentina. He stated that export boom relied too much on foreign export and that “simply replaced one colonial master with others”. In my opinion, this problem still exists today among developing countries or countries in poverty as they have to rely on wealthy nations to run their economy.

Finally, I enjoyed reading about how photography was considered the most powerful symbol of modernization. Photographs could describe the process of modernization by capturing the photograph of buildings and construction of huge buildings. Moreover, the photographs were also used to take pictures of indigenous to fix racial identity. Benito Juarez had indigenous past, but he managed to erase it by using photographs to promote that he different from slaves and peasants. In present day, photographs are not too special for ordinary people, but back then it was used to document the signs of progress to modernity.

Reading “Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics” helped me to understand the circumstance surrounding slavery and development of colored rights in Latin America in 19th century. While reading this document I noticed some comparison of situation between United States and countries in Latin America, which I found very intriguing.

Ideas such as biological differences were brought in Latin America from Europe which clearly excluded people based on their race. This was called scientific racism. Before I read this chapter, I had some knowledge about scientific racism and it was about using scientific technique to justify racism as well as slavery. Even though it was thought to be scientific, it had little connections to science. It was intriguing to see the lines such as “Different groups had innately different abilities” and “Mixing of races led to the degeneration of the species”. This enabled direct exclusion of groups other than white and segregation. In addition, Scientific racism enabled colonial system to encourage cleanliness of blood, created notion that whites were smart and superior and treated Blacks and Indigenous as a threat to modernization. The idea of white superiority led people to boost the prosperity or modernize by attempting to reduce the number of colored people by intermarriage or reclassification. For example in 1838, Afro Argentines consisted of 25% of the population in Buenos Aires, but by 1887 the number dropped to 2%. A large number of them were reclassified as trigueño or “wheat colored”. I found this interesting because the number dropped massively in such a short time and idea of “improving the race”.

I was able to see the difference between how USA and Brazil regarded slaves. For instance, Brazil tended to bring more slaves and they were expendables. In often case, many slaves died within a few years of arrival. Life expectancy was also very low in Brazil compared to that of in America. On the other hand, the United States wanted slaves to live longer and encouraged them to have children. In addition race and slavery were not linked in Brazil and Cuba and blacks were free and they could own land and even slaves. These kinds of differences were very astounding to me because I thought that a slavery system in North and South America was basically the same.

Through reading this week’s chapter, I was able to draw the difference between slavery system in the US and Brazil, rights of slaves and the idea of scientific racism.

I believe it was interesting to read about Latin American countries after achieving independence from Spain. Although they achieved it they had to face so many problems such as instability and economic growth. Consequently, Caudillos appeared to take power and from the reading Juan Manuel de Rosas may be one of the most famous brutal leader. When an influence of Catholic Church and Spanish colonialists disappeared, this led to the emerge of Caudillo. Before I took this course, I had no idea about it, but the reading allowed me to know what it is and famous caudillos from Latin America. The  Caudillos did not prefer to have a modern state where they create systems and institutions. Adherent of Caudillos were mainly peasants and Indians, who wanted defend their autonomy and community from liberals who sought to create a modern state. Caudillos granted lands to peasants to join military and peasants and Indians needed Caudillos to protect them. Therefore, people may state that they were relying on each other.

I found interesting and surprising to learn about Santa Anna who was considered a independence hero and villain at the same time. I knew that Mexico lost the war against America, which Mexico lost Texas and California, so people can claim that Santa Anna is certainly responsible for losing territories.

As I was reading the book, I learned that economic development within Latin America differed depending on regions. For example, Chile was doing relatively well by exporting formidable merchant marine mining. This allowed more domestic investment such as education and military. As a result of this, Chile was able to fend off attacks from Bolivia and eventually Chile was able to gain new territories. On page 51, the image shows how much territories Bolivia had lost. I was completely unaware of this and I believe that this happened due to lack of ability to gain and consolidate power nationwide after independence.

Through this reading, I was able to learn about Caudillos and how Latin America struggled to consolidate power.