I was born into a century that is filled with technology and various forms of communication. Innovation in the realm of technology has increased exponentially and I have taken it for granted. Having the new iPhone and a state-of-the-art laptop and a radio in my car, I never considered the implications these forms of communication would have had the moment they were introduced into society. I only listened to the radio in the morning to hear about accidents along the road, but never would have realized it had such a significant impact in the history of Latin America. It allowed hundreds of thousands of people across the region to tune into anything. This brought everyone closer and ultimately was used by the governments at the time to bring in support or ridicule to themselves.

The main difficulty with using the radio to broadcast the political values and beliefs of the ruling party is that there is nothing that forces the people to listen. The only way to captivate the audience is to either broadcast something they all want to hear or say something that shocks the audience. An example of a leader captivating the audience is Adolf Hitler. (not endorsing what he’s known for.) He looked at the situation the people of Germany were in and created his speeches based on that. He empowered the people to rise from the bottom; he promised that he would bring economic relief to the region and rebuild after the war. Being in a desperate situation, the public had a deep desire for change to a better life which is why they all listened to what Hitler said. An example of a leader captivating the audience by means of shock is Donald Trump. Regardless of whether he is a racist, what he said was partially to raise tensions and bring attention to himself and this was mediated and expedited by different forms of communication.

This week’s reading brought in economic aspects to the history of Latin America. “Bananas Are Our Business” seemed like a silly title but after reading it, the title was the perfect description of the situation. The text gave an in-depth description of bananas, the UFCO, and how the two are intermingled with the history of Latin America. In addition, this text offered a view of the manipulating nature of the United States during the time.

Clearly, the United States took advantage of their position as one of the most powerful nations in the world at the time and used it to create economic relationships that seemed beneficial for others but the main goal being exponential benefits for themselves. The US set up a trap that Latin America fell into. Looking at the choices from Latin America’s perspective, however, allows me to understand why the country chose to agree with the US conditions. It seemed that the offer would bring a lot of economic benefits to Latin America as the US created the demand for bananas and Latin America would sell them and receive capital in return. This, however, created an economy that was completely dependent on the demand for bananas in the US.

Although this is an extremely manipulative way of conducting business, I can partly see why the US did it. The US was already an extremely powerful nation and the relationship with Latin America would only bring benefits. It was the US that made the conditions of the economic relationship because Latin America barely in a position to make demands of their own, especially when there were immediate benefits.

This week’s readings dealt with the caudillo leaders after independence was introduced. From google searching the definition of a caudillo, it was easily concluded that caudillos were military leaders who were had an extreme amount of power and had the ability to use this power along with violence to defend and spread their interests. It is due to these leaders that there were barely any times of peace shortly after independence. Caudillos provided security, food, and support to the people that were at the bottom of the power hierarchy if the caudillos received support in return; the two scratched each other’s backs.

“The Slaughterhouse” by Esteban Echeverria was one of the longer reads, but was engaging. It gave a tangible image of how large differences between two groups of people can lead to conflict. The text depicts the story of the conflict between two groups on opposite ends of every spectrum: the Unitarians and Federalists. From the way Echeverria wrote the text, it is safe to assume him to favour the Unitarians. He depicts the Federalists as extremely cruel and gross barbarians and the Unitarians as a civilized people. Echeverria also uses the theme of slaughterhouses and animals to emphasize the barbarian nature between the Federalists and Unitarians.

The main text that I was drawn into was Simon Bolivar’s letter to Jamaica. Before reading through, I would have expected Bolivar’s letter to have the same tone as the other letters of revolution; filled with excitement and passion. This, however, was not the case. Compared to the authors of other letters, Bolivar was comparatively calm and composed and conveyed his point without the language being overwhelming to the reader. In his letter, Bolivar continuously makes statements of how the Spanish had been extremely unjust and empowered the Latin American population to break free.

Looking at the actions of Bolivar, I can understand the rationale of the people who celebrated him as a hero, but I can also see him as a rebellious figure that threatens aspects of society. Bolivar deliberately acted against the rules that were previously laid out for everyone, but that’s expected from someone who wanted to alter the core of society.

While reading the journal of Catalina De Erauso, I believed it was an excerpt from a fiction novel; it was almost like an adventure embarked upon by a fictional character. Regardless of whether she changed the view of gender roles during the time, she definitely took on a role that was considered to be masculine during the time. If her story were taught during the time, the stereotypes of women not being as strong and determined as men would have been heavily questioned.

Although her strength shines through during her times of battle and conquering lands, her true psyche was revealed during times when she dealt with family troubles. When she left her family, she did not look back and kept moving forwards without saying giving any news to her parents; she just severed connections very quickly. Despite this, she showed little to no emotional torment which could be a result of her not having the strong parent-child connection so many of us have. Also, when her and her father crossed paths, she did not utter a word that would hint at the idea that she was his daughter. The average person would immediately cry out and want to be reunited, but this was not the case with Catalina. Regardless, her emotional strength is heavily exemplified at times like these.

This week’s reading dealt with the date when Christopher Columbus “discovered” the Americas. In junior high, I learned what I thought to be a great deal about the voyage of Christopher Columbus and how he called the indigenous peoples “Indians” because he believed he had found a new route to India. I was briefly taught that he was known as a hero because he discovered a new land and brought power and riches to his country. The only “bad” thing I knew Columbus had done was that he brought natives back to his country to show the king and queen that he had indeed found something that was worth the investment.

The texts, however, brought the other side of the story to light. I believed that he was a hero that discovered the Americas and that is one way of viewing his actions, but another view is that he was a European who invaded the lands that were inhabited by the natives for thousands of years. From this perspective, one can view Columbus as the villain of the story. Moreover, what Columbus did to the natives further strengthens his position as the antagonist in history as his actions can only be described as horrendous.

Finally, the reading altered my view of Columbus. Junior high taught me that he was a hero and an adventurer, but I now believe that he was more of a businessman. The number of times he mentions “gold” in his journal just crossed the border of obsession and it appears that it is this obsession with gold that caused him to act the way he does. Also, the way he reported to the queen signifies he was a businessman. There were so many repetitions of “Your Majesties,” that one could read his journal with a tone of flattery which is justifiable because it was royalty who funded his voyage and without them, his journey would not exist.A

The texts this week covered the conflicts that occurred within Latin American during the late 1900s. The main topic was the “dirty wars” or wars that were fought without uniform identification. Dawson describes this time as one of the bloodiest and cruelest since the establishment of independence. A normal civil war would have caused less fear as there would be uniforms to distinguish enemy from ally, but in dirty wars, there were no uniforms to be worn, therefore there was no way to identify the enemy. Due to this, everyone became paranoid because everyone could possibly be an enemy. This resulted in the entire population living in constant fear. Reading the text surprised me in the worst way possible, but I cannot imagine living through this time as I can only imagine the fear that would constantly haunt my mind.

The most interesting text was the interview of the century. Before, I believed that violence is not a required step in a revolution; that war was just something we created because we were too lazy to look at it through any other means. Chairman Gonzalo brought a new viewpoint to light during the interview excerpt. Gonzalo believed that “without revolutionary violence one class cannot replace another, an old order cannot be overthrown to create a new one.” This difference between my view and Gonzalo’s view may be my ignorance of what a revolution is meant to be or it may be because he just has a different view of revolutions. Regardless, he did give a completely different view on role of violence in the process of revolutions.

From previous knowledge, I was led to believe that modernization for any nation would be a beneficial process. During the Industrial Revolution, which was a form of modernization, I was focused on the benefits rather than the harm is brought to Great Britain. For example, the Industrial Revolution resulted in cheaper means of production and lower costs of goods to the country which is entirely beneficial. However, I only skimmed the surface of the negatives which resulted in my skewed view of modernization being a process beneficial to everyone. The reading from the previous week continued to strengthen my view. My previous knowledge led me to believe that there was in fact a gilded age, yet the reading introduced the idea that this period of time did not exist. How can the economy be booming, infrastructure growing in complexity and numbers exponentially, and yet the gilded age did not exist????? This was a discrepancy that I hoped the readings would solve.

The reading this week was looked at the issue from another perspective and in fact did brought the discrepancy to light and changed my view on modernization for any country. Although the country as a whole was benefiting from modernization, if one looked deeper into the whether everyone benefited, it can be seen that modernization did not benefit everyone equally and some even detrimentally. I believed that the main harm done to the lower class citizens would only be economic such as a loss of jobs and land. There was, however, much more conflict. One example Dawson brings up is the detriment brought about by the railway construction. “Almost every mile of railway construction was accompanied by some minor conflict,” is a statement that signified the extent to which modernization was a detriment to to country.

Moving onto another topic, my view on Porfirio Diaz. I have no previous knowledge on him so I read about him with an open mind. First impressions are deceiving as the case is with Porfirio Diaz. He was a good leader in some areas because he was able to facilitate the process of modernization of Mexico and bring increased stability into the Mexican economy. His government, however, was anything but beneficial to Mexico. It was a dictatorship that used its army to take control and oppress the general population. Furthermore, the actions of Diaz claiming not to be running for re-election and then jumping in and “winning” a rigged election started a series of events that sent Mexico into an infinite series of civil wars that did nothing to benefit the country.

This chapter, as mentioned in the title, places a major focus on the process of modernization of Latin America aided by the incredible growth of export in the 19th century. What caused the most surprise was the idea conveyed by the readings that in order for true industrialization and modernization to occur in any part of the world, the technology, ideas, and beliefs of the Western region of the world must be the dominating force. The text continually mentioned how Latin America adopted so many ideas from the adoption of different clothing styles to the creation of a democratic government; all of which are aspects of Western society. This does make sense because at the time, the Western economies were incredibly strong and everyone wanted a strong economy, so they attributed the creation of a strong economy to the values and customs of the Western region.

What also interested me was the fact that the economic boom of Latin American was due to the growing economies of Europe and North America; Latin America was at the right place at the right time. The growing economies of Europe and North America required enormous amounts of resources and Latin America was in a position to provide these resources in exchange for investments and new technology. Not only would these new technologies help in the modernization of Latin, it would also increase productivity and export. For example, the new railroad system implemented in many countries would cause agriculture resources to be transported faster to export regions.

This week’s reading provided insight into the development of rights and citizenship within the Americas. The comparison between slavery in the Latin America and slavery in the United States was an important aspect of the reading because it gives the reader a stepping stone to a greater understanding of the situation. The environment and conditions the African slaves were treated in American is somewhat common knowledge so the reader can imagine the extent of the slavery from some previous understanding. 

From this comparison, I was not only able to understand how slavery worked in Brazil, but also how it compared to other infamous instances of slavery within a country. Compared to United States, the slavery in Brazil had its ups and downs. In the United States, race was heavily intertwined with slavery. The main aspect being that the skin colour and origin of the slaves in the United States was the same. In Brazil, however, race and slavery were barely related. In Brazil, any race had the ability to become free, own land, and even own slaves themselves. When it comes to the treatment of the slaves, however, Brazil falls far behind the United States. In the United States, slaves were considered more human and were treated somewhat humanely with the hopes of keeping them alive for longer periods of time so they would do more work. They were also encouraged to have families of their own. However, when I read about the treatment of slaves in Brazil, I was a bit taken by surprise in the worst way possible. Dawson states the working conditions in the fields as horrific and the life expectancy of the slaves after arriving being an extremely short three years. The slave system in Brazil was atrocious even without comparison because they viewed human lives as nothing; they viewed human lives as dispensable.