Week 3 Readings

1 Reply

The custom of casta paintings from eighteenth century Mexico shows the extend to which society was officially stratified by race. From these series, we can see that race in colonial Mexico was a defining characteristic of people’s lives. At first glance, it seems obvious that race directly leads to social class. However, the sixteen different castes only existed because these groups mixed frequently. The inherent contradiction of these paintings is that they try to concretely define and sort race, which is a fluid concept. Not only does the actual race of a family change over generations, but the idea of race is also subject to change over time.

What I found especially interesting, though, is the expectations that seem to come with each particular casta. These expectations came in many forms, such as the dress of the family, to their surrounding environment, to their demeanor. In many of the paintings, even the lowest classes seem to be forming happy families, having accepted their place within the structure of the empire. These paintings were intended to show the contemporary makeup of the population of Mexico, but they actually only depict a vision of the country. Specifically, a vision of the ruling class during this particular time period.

Based on the casta paintings, this system of racial organization seems so well organized, but there are of course exceptions. This made me think of La Malinche, an indigenous woman who interpreted for Cortes during the imposition of Spanish colonialism in Mexico. She was referred to as Doña Marina by the Spaniards, a title of respect ordinarily given to important Spanish women. I wonder where people like her would fit in to this system? A native woman, but one who spoke Castilian, was a practicing catholic, took on a Spanish name, and gave a significant service to the Spanish crown. Perhaps because she acted so much like a Spanish woman, she was exempted from her Indian status. Throughout the three centuries of uneven colonial rule, there must have been countless individuals who seemed to break the system.

What I took from this is the idea that racial divisions of society were very real and had far-reaching effects of the layout of Latin American society. However, this seems to be a tremendously simplistic view, because it ignores how people were able to work within those confines. Ultimately, the casta paintings served to promote a view of order within Spanish America, whether or not this corresponded with reality.

Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Chronicle

Leave a reply

I found the second reading fascinating, but what struck me most about Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s manuscript was his perspective and his treatment of his intended audience. The author, who is described as an indigenous man who taught himself Spanish, seems to adopt many of the literary customs of the chronicle but uses them to his own ends.

Most interestingly, he seems to be writing from the perspective of a good Christian, a religion that had been brought to his country by force. His frequent references to the European narrative of the discovery of America and his formal language used to address his noble catholic readers show where his faith lies. It seems to me that Poma de Ayala was not against Christian rule in Peru, but in fact he felt that the corregidores were insufficiently Christian. He discusses their materialism and physical abuses in terms of sin, most notably with the phrase “With their greed for gold and silver they go to hell.” It seems to me that, as a devout catholic, Poma de Ayala believed that the native people of the “New World” are well suited to practice Spanish religion. In a way, perhaps his principal grievance was actually the lack of religious standards in the early colonial empire.

Like many European narratives that I have previously read, there seems to be a theme of civilization versus barbarism. The obvious distinction about this example is that here it’s the Spaniards who are considered the single-minded savages and the conquered people are portrayed as victims. Furthermore, the first series of images (which can be seen by clicking on the link at the top of the web page) seems to go into a religious retelling of the history of the people of Peru. Again, to me this Christianized interpretation of the region’s history serves Andean causes by appropriating colonial conventions.

Another aspect of this is Poma de Ayala’s source of legitimacy. In addition to religious justification, the author also derives some authority from his own personal experience. At some level, this chronicle is not a theological petition, but a personal one. As a catholic and an upstanding, cooperative subject of the Spanish Empire, Poma de Ayala believes he has the same rights to petition the king as the white conquistadores. This is perhaps the beginning of a hybrid culture in Latin America, where racial divisions are very real, yet also blurred.

Last Year’s Videos

Leave a reply

The two videos in particular that made the characteristics of a quality video clearer to me are “The Terror,” from week eleven of last year and “Signs of Crisis in a Gilded Age,” from week eight. In “The Terror,” I found it extremely helpful that everyone’s points of view were explained and considered valid, which was not the case in some of the earlier videos. This made it much easier to grasp the motivating forces behind the violence in Peru, and shaped it as a conflict between rational people. The I especially liked how the presenters concluded their thoughts with examples, which is another thing that many earlier videos lacked. Furthermore, the students clearly took great care in finding music and images to fit their narration, which made the whole experience of watching the video much more comfortable and easy to follow. In effect, it seemed to me that Camila Sol and Miles Zhang were able to tell a complete story, rather than simply expecting the viewers to agree with their conclusions.

Another of last year’s videos that I found helpful was “Signs of Crisis in a Gilded Age,” where I felt that the presenters did a thorough job of situating their content within numerous historical trends and narrations. It is also evident that they’ve taken care to weight their sources and they fully understood the values of different historical authorities.

On the other hand, I would say that “Caudillos Versus the Nation State,” from week five was among the worst that last year’s students produced. I find this topic particularly interesting and was particularly excited to start this video, and so I was very disappointed with how boring the video was. Despite my interest in the topic, I found it hard to concentrate on the narration, and my thoughts tended to drift as the speakers become more and more monotonous. The complete lack of visual aids also made it difficult to pay attention, and by the end of the video, I felt as though I hadn’t learned anything more about this subject.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first video “The Meeting of Two Worlds,” was hands down the hardest to get through. There was no flow to the narration, and important details were simply added on to sentences as though they were afterthoughts. Similarly, it seemed as though the narrators lost their train of thought numerous times, and went off on tangents all over the place. Most frustratingly, though, was their tendency to not explain anything fully, and instead simply stated “… in this period, many things changed in Latin America.” In this video, it seemed that all the major points were lost and only superficial details came through

Introductory Post

Leave a reply

My name is Haroun Khalid, and I am a geography major here at UBC. I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and went to a Spanish immersion elementary school. After leaving that school, I quickly forgot all of the Spanish that I ever knew. I distinctly remember a moment in middle school when I fully realized that I no longer spoke the language, and since the I’ve been trying to learn it fluently. Since entering university, I’ve also taken two history courses focusing on Latin American areas, and I thought that it would be a good idea to take this class to continue those studies.