This week we have learned about independence in Latin America. From the very first line,”the idea of Latin America destabilizes geography, history and identity” this video made me reflection what I know about Latin America. Growing up in Mexico, I learned about independence through school. I always thought independence was something that was inevitable. I figured that no nation would want to be a part of political representation if they could avoid it. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before people would take up arms and fight to get rid of the Spanish. It seemed to me that by overthrowing the invaders from their land, the natives had achieved freedom. However it was only until recently that I began to think about what being a free, independent nation really meant. My parents are very interested in politics in Mexico and the Mexican government is a constant topic of conversation at our house. Recently, they made a comment about how Mexico is not a free nation. In Mexico, we have been ruled by the same political party for many decades now that is known to have committed fraud for most of its rule. I won’t go into too much detail but generally, it is believed they have benefitted and exploited the working class for their own benefit. While watching this week’s video a quote from Simon Bolivar came up, “a people is enslaved, when the government infringes on and usurps the rights of the citizen or subject.” This really stood out for me because I could relate it to my own country. I strongly feel that the role of a government is to protect its people and that everyone should have a say in the country’s decisions. Simon Bolivar mentions the “world balance of power” that was needed at the time and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was about the people’s need for independence and getting rid of Spanish rule. What really surprised me though, was that people who were not of Spanish descent such as the Indigenous people would ever oppose this movement. I understand that they were given many benefits however, they were often seen as less important than the Spanish. \u00a0If this was the case, why would they not want to support a movement that would potentially give them a higher social standing as well as a voice in terms of how their country is ruled?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week we have learned about independence in Latin America. From the very first line,”the idea of Latin America destabilizes geography, history and identity” this video made me reflection what I know about Latin America. Growing up in Mexico, I learned about independence through school. I always thought independence was something that was inevitable. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/carolinarueda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}