This week’s reading is almost a contrast to last week’s reading, because instead of looking at the optimistic future of Latin America (LA), it looks at a variety of different examples of the reality. The readings varied from rebel manifestations and also poetry.

Rubén Darío’s poem titled “To Roosevelt” is a different kind of source that we have normally looked at during the the term, but it is particularly interesting. The description before the poem talks about how Darío is considered a modernist Latin American writer. This is prevalent in his poem, because of the style. The style of the poem is reflective of a modernist style because of the break from traditional form.

Darío conveys his disagreement with the United States, because of the clear distinction between the US and LA. This is shown through the pronouns of ‘you’ and ‘us’ in roder to describe the two different countries.

The beginning of the poem sets the scene of the controversy between the US, because of its promotion of liberality, but in practice the country is still entrenched in its conservative foundations of Puritanism. There is also a constant extended metaphor of the US being violent and oppressing to others. In the first line, Darío refers to the US as ‘Hunter’, and then refers to them as the ‘future invaders of our naive America/ with this Indian blood, an America’. This reference seems to be comparing the US to the European monarchy in terms of its abuse of power. Darío highlights the idea that the US appears to be progressive, it is just a facade of the old traditional ways of the European monarchy.

James Creelman’s description of Porfino Diaz is overwhelmingly positive, as he opens his excerpt with a description of Diaz’s facial features and. Initially, I thought that the primary source was a piece of romance literature about Mexico because of the beauty that is depicted of the landscape and Diaz. However, it seems that Creelman is just incredibly respectful of Diaz, who he states is a ‘masterful genius’ because he turned Mexico – forcibly – into a ‘democratic’ country.

Creelman explains how Mexico has been transformed into an idyllic democratic country because of the increasing national treasury and ability for trade. He quotes how when Diaz become president Mexico’s yearly “foreign trade amounted to $36,111,600… To-day her commerce  reaches the enormous sum of $481.363,388” (136). This increase in trade income is amazing, and illustrates Diaz as Mexico’s light after many years of violent wars.

Moreover, Diaz invested into a “ten thousand mile railway” (137) which not only helps trade, but helps to bring a sense of national identity to Mexicans as they have easier access to all of Mexican environment. As well as this, Diaz established a successful school system, which allows an increasing amount of pupils to attend school, from the previous “4,850 schools… [it has grown to] more than 12,000 schools” (136). This will help the development of Mexico, because of the increasing intelligence of the younger generation.

These descriptions of all of Diaz’s successful work in Mexico is hard to fault, as it depicts a man who seems to just genuinely care about the people of Mexico. I’m not sure if the previous primary sources have made me into a pessimistic person, but after reading I felt like it was a trap. Why was everything suddenly positive?

After thinking about it, I looked back at Diaz’s speech to Creelman and managed to find some areas of criticism for his regime. He talks about “enforced peace” (132, 135) on the people of Mexico when he initially came into power. How he had to transition the people into a democratic system, which poses the question, is Mexico’s democracy founded on fear and resisted support? Especially when Diaz talks about the people of Mexico, he only appreciates the middle-class as they are clever enough to understand politics but not greedy enough to desire more power.

Another question I have about his regime, is whether or not it can be defined as democratic, as he has been the only President, there is no opposing party and he states himself how he will help guide the next president on how to act similar to him. This type of democracy seems to be very similar to a dictatorship to me.

The readings for this week portrayed a follow on from last week, as it looked at how the change to a ‘liberal’ government effected the marginalised people in Latin America. From the reading, it is clear from the reading that the major problem in the new independent society have, was defining who was a free citizen. In my response, I will focus mainly on the treatment of African people. A major part of the marginalisation is because of the scientific ‘evidence’ that had begun to get more credibility. This scientific research focused on the cleanliness of blood in order to determine the acceptability an individual had of becoming a citizen.

There is a constant comparing of North America and Latin American in the reading, as it talks about the different lives Africans had in these two environments. On page 85, Table 3.2 compares the amount of emancipated blacks in North America and Latin American countries. What particularly amazed me was the number of free people of colour in Brazil compared to in USA. This is because of the facade that the US conveyed of being a progressive country in their ideals; that independence was equal to liberation. This table clearly shows that Brazil, who was one of the last countries to abolish slavery is actually a better environment for slaves to become free than in USA. That being said, the table clearly does not show what kind of environment any of the countries had towards the free and enslaved blacks.

The primary text that I found most interesting amongst the sources, was the Political program of the Partido Independiente de Color, 1908. This manifest of the demands of rights was particularly significant because it was in Cuba, which was one of the most oppressive countries of former African slaves. The demands that they make are very progressive and a lot of them are not in place in modern society. This manifest reminded me of the manifests that I have read by the Civil Rights Movement and also Black Power. This counters the idea of Latin America being a conservative and oppressive country that has historically been the notion that I have been taught.

This week’s reading focused on the politics of Latin America in the nineteenth century. I will focus mostly on the short story by Esteban Echeverría, The Slaughterhouse. This story was a revolutionary piece of literature in Latin America, as it was one of the first pieces of socio-cultural reflection. It used allegory in order to portray Echeverría’s personal opinion on the government in Latin America.

The setting of the story sets the scene for Echeverría’s perspective. The environment is like a battlefield, with the human and animals that are described having very little difference in their behaviour. For example, ‘An old woman set off in angry pursuit behind a young man who had smeared her face with blood. His friends, responding to the troublemaker’s yelling and cursing, surrounded and harassed her the way dogs will badger a bull.’ The humans are compared to animals in their behaviour, which illustrates Latin America’s political environment as blood-thirsty.

Moreover, the theme of blood in the text is interesting when analysing the nature of politics. The entire text is filled of extremely explicit violence and gore when it comes to talking about animal blood and parts. I personally interpreted this violence of animal parts as being a metaphor for the politics. Echeverría presents the animal body as the political body, as he describes people fighting for ‘a prize piece of offal’, or ‘a tangle of intestines’. The cannibalistic nature of the people in the text are desperate to have a piece of the animal’s body, which could represent how the people of Latin America are desperate for some form of political power. They are fighting each other for the chance to gain societal power, as the political body is so limited.

In this sense, the parts that certain people are described as having is important, the intestines are shared by ‘four hundred black women’. Also there are ‘capering boys and black and mulatto women… scavenge for chitterlings’. These representations show how the oppressed in Latin American society are treated unfairly, and have little power for finding political power.

In analysing Echeverría’s text, I am not necessarily saying that his ideas are correct and that the government in Latin America actually represented the illustration that he creates. However, it is an important text in thinking about the history of literature in Latin America, and how it helped to shape the culture.