Tag Archives: last210

The Fighting Cholitas

4 Replies

This documentary was really interesting because it led me to a lot of introspection about entertainment. This was a phenomenon that I didn’t know much about. The concept of ‘chola’ that I have known is quite different and not characterized by skirt wearing. I also thought it was interesting that one of las cholitas noted that it is an honour to be a chola, yet they experience a large amount of discrimination. As well, a parallel can be drawn between our discussions of popular/high culture and one of the mother’s saying her daughter can choose to be a cholita at her own accord. This shows how some elements of popular culture allow for free agency.

This documentary automatically made me draw comparisons to Western culture. I thought of how women’s fighting gains a fascination or following from the public because the women are often sexualized. Here, the fascination with lucha libre comes from las cholitas being a bit of a marginalized group, the interesting premise of fighting in petticoats, and the audience participation. The audience is imperative to lucha libre. Both the audience and the fighters use lucha libre as a means to destress.

Lucha libre shows how two phenomena of popular culture, las cholitas and wrestling, can intermingle. It can be seen that these fights are entertaining because the cholitas are regarded as more of a phenomenon than real humans. Humiliation is encouraged because these women are thought of as lower. Across cultures, capitalizing off of an ostracized group is a popular premise. This is exemplified when they talk about how audience says that they watch because they show everything underneath their skirt and criticize them, but in reality there is no flashing.

My question for this week: What devices are available to us to liberate ourselves within our society? How does culture impact our ability to liberate ourselves?

The Cultural Life of Coca/The Coca War

1 Reply

I took a couple anthropology classes last semester and learned about the coca rituals so these two pieces were something I was already interested in. However, I didn’t know the plant was culturally significant so recently as well. The tradition of a newly married couple planting and harvesting coca and raising the plant with their family was something I found very sentimental.

‘The Cultural Life of Coca’ depicts the cultural significance and just a few of the various ritualistic traditions that coca has in Latin American culture. The piece introduces the plant with the more grand uses of it, then finishes by describing its casual and social uses.

‘The Coca War’ describes the brutal ways in which the US War on Drugs destroyed coca crops and impacted Latin American lives. Militarization was introduced to stop production. This was a frustrating read because you can identify the source of a lot of problems. Of course, this is not the sole source, but it surely added to hundreds of years of prejudice. In the US, coca had no cultural bearings and was solely associated with cocaine. Thus, rather than looking intrinsically, they went to the source to try and stop problems within their own country. This led to the destruction of the livelihood for many innocent victims. This also led to an association with Central and South America with drugs.

You can notice the actor-observer effect at work here. The actor-observer effect is the notion of thinking other people do bad things because they’re bad, but when I do bad things, it’s situational. The US saw the popularity of coca in Bolivia as a 2-D issue and a reflection of bad character, lacking to take in the multifaceted nature of the plant. On the other hand, they took the multifaceted nature of their own country into consideration and deflected the issue onto others. This led to hostility and brutality. My second point is that this also has heavy notes of nationalism which had increasing significance, especially at this time.

Foreigners enter with a lack of awareness or cultural intelligence and their actions have fatal consequences. It is a narrative repeated over and over and over. My question this week is in the context of other cultures, what is the coca plant comparable to? Not only in the act of destruction, but also comparable in cultural significance and rituals.

 

Castalleno’s Cooking Lesson

2 Replies

As someone who’s favourite novel became ‘Gone Girl’ at too young of an age, I loved this piece. Someone please get Amy Dunne on this.

This piece details the dichotomy between the expectations of a ‘wife’ and the humanity of a woman. Rosario confirms that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and that she felt learning any skills outside the role of a domesticated woman was useless. She furthers this by explaining that domestication is supposed to be biologically engraved in women, yet she feels out of place in her role. She also compares herself to a slave by saying ‘I can’t change masters’. This emphasizes the feeling of permanent constraint and eternal domestication.

Rosario also emphasizes the objectification of women when she wants to remind her husband whom he is making love to. This shows that women are not viewed as human; a wife simply holds a place and they do not exist outside of it. This also leads to the realization of what is expected of a wife and their sexuality, (aka the Madonna-whore complex which is something that I could go on for days about). Rosario says ‘its rigidity is incompatible with the spontaneity needed for making love’. This shows how a wife is expected to be pure, poised, and perfect, yet her role requires contradictory qualities that seem animalistic in comparison. There seems to be no overlap in a woman being a wife whilst also maintaining a sexual identity.  Castalleno ultimately compartmentalizes her identity to ‘wife’. Using this as her sole identifier, despite adding ‘self-sacrificing little Mexican’ before it at the beginning, has an impact on Castalleno’s self-image. She constantly takes self deprecating jabs and even calls herself an imbecile.

Castalleno consistently emphasizes that her marriage is loveless by comparing it to being as dull as broiled beef and her husband laying on top of her to a gravestone. She says ‘Our meeting was due to accident. A happy one? It’s still too soon to say’ (347). This provides insight on how marriage happens in her culture. She says she met him and was quickly married, and despite an obvious resentment, she hopes that they will fall in love with each other one day.

Rosario says her ‘husband will resent the appearance of my dominance’. Do you think a woman can be both liberated and live a domesticated lifestyle? How do higher education, a career, and personal ambitions challenge the traditional role of a wife? Can they co-exist?

Week 3: The Pongo’s Dream

2 Replies

José Maria Arguedas reminds readers that in the end, what you get is what you give in ‘The Pongo’s Dream’.  Immediately, the dynamic between the two main characters is set as the Master consistently dehumanizes Pongo. He does so by insisting Pongo to act as an animal and only ever naming him ‘Indian’. The racism in this is quite apparent as it was a common racial stereotype to compare people of colour to animals. It is important to note that Pongo was polite and efficient at what he did. Arguedas says, ‘whatever he was told to do, he did well’. This demonstrates the impact of the brutality and control of the colonizers. This is also evident when Pongo says that he can’t know his worth later on which emphasizes the impact of domination on the people.

Something that I found interesting was that Pongo didn’t pray in the dream because he didn’t believe it was his place. My take on this was to emphasize that karma exists separately from religion. You do not need religion to be a good person, nor does it make you a good person, and it doesn’t protect you from the consequences of your actions. Arguedas follows Pongo saying that he didn’t believe it was his place by saying ‘nor did any place belong to him’. Again, this reiterates the immense feeling of displacement and defeat following colonization.

The eternal licking exchange between Pongo and the Master epitomizes the overall message I took from this reading. In their exchange, Pongo is in undesirable circumstances, but ultimately has it better than the Master. The colonized is treated like sh*t, the colonizer is given privilege and false grandiosity, yet faces sh*t (literally). I also thought that this was intended to be endearing and uplifting for those facing the devastating impacts of colonization.

Class question: Magical realism is quite popular in Latin American works. Which elements of this work do you think are magical realism (if any) and how do they tie to the religious aspect?