“In the Andes, the Devil merges with the image of the stranger.” If you were to replace ‘the Andes’ with ‘Latin America’, I believe it would still be a true claim. It was true with the natives that were “discovered” by Europeans; it was true with Guaman Poma; it was true in Guatemala with the Banana War; it was true in Cuba’s missile crisis; it was true when Mario Vargas Llosa wrote this… and it continues to be true today. In my opinion it’s not that Latinos see strangers as the Devil all the time, but when one of us feels threatened by a stranger, country or person, we tend to associate them with pure evil. The sad part is that, like in the text, we sometimes feel that even citizens of our countries are strangers, because of the huge cultural diversity that characterizes Latin America, and this has lead to war, murders and all sorts of crimes.

The red flag mentioned in Vargas Llosa’s  is also a big problem in Latin America. I have lived most of my life in El Salvador and when elections come around people usually take sides, hardly anyone stays neutral, but the bad part is the antagonistic nature of left and right wing parties mixed with the hot blood that flows through most Latinos. We are, mostly, very passionate about our football teams, political parties, religious views, etc. and that just leads to plenty of violence. What struck me the most about this text is that Vargas Llosa mentions that guerrilla movements are born among intellectuals and middle-class citizens and I guess I had never thought about it this way. In my high school we were made to think of these movements as emerging from resentful poor people who all they want to do is make the rich pay for their crimes. It’s a different point of view that Vargas Llosa gives me and I think he could, and probably is, right.

It’s a shame that in Latin America we see each other as strangers even in our countries. I have felt that some people see me as a stranger in my country and it’s odd although I had never thought about it until now. I can’t even begin to imagine how a foreigner must feel when visiting Latin America, do you feel welcome or do you feel that people see you as the Devil?