Both this weeks readings highlighted the exploitative relationship and the power dynamics between the Indigenous and the colonizers in Latin America. The Asturias “Legend of the Silent Bell” describes Latin America under the colonial rule where the church and the European colonizers held power over the poor Indigenous. I found the reading quite wordy, which made it relatively hard to grasp. On the other hand, in “Pongo’s Dream”, an Indigenous man, described as small and fragile, is humiliated by his master repeatedly. In the Silent Bell a woman rips off her eyes in order to donate them, while in Pongo’s Dream he is “smeared in excrement” and sentenced to lick it off the angles body for an eternity. I found both these texts quite graphic in the way they described the violence and maltreatment of the Indigenous.

This made me think about why are we reading these texts in the first place as they don’t seem to be the traditional pieces of popular culture one would expect. Are these readings reflecting the way the Indigenous have been perceived/treated throughout the history until present in Latin America? What do you think?