These texts brought about the importance of the influence the government has on media production, especially as more of the means began to expand and increase across Latin American countries. In document 7.1, a newspaper article from the New York Times reports the tales of Peronist corruption, repression and fakery. It mentions how there has been a serious split within the peronista party over Eva’s candidacy to the point that some members of the council were forced out for advocating the governor of the Province of Buenos Aires as second place on the ticket. The New York Times selectively reports Latin American events in a more negative view.

The second document, an account on the “renunciamiento” from the Peronist Party of Buenos Aires does not provide us with the dialogue from the crowd. Eva advocates for Peron as he brought social justice, economic independence and the civic, moral and spiritual sovereignty of the country. She also strongly promotes General Peron as the leader that will bring justice and freedom. However, the words in the text do not appear to be what was Eva actually said. This shows how dangerous it is to rely on written texts from archives in order to reconstruct a past that did not take place through the medium of the written word.

The third document, an approximation of what was actually said in the “renunciamiento” only provides us with fragments or a small glimpse of the moment that happened. This version seems considerably different then that given by the Peronist Party, showing how written data was easily transformed by political leaders to portray a different reality through media. Eva asks the audience to not make her do what she does not want to do, something completely opposite from what the second document said, where she was willing to devote her life if it meant bringing happiness to one household in her Nation.

The last document, is an accurate rendering of what Eva said on the radio after the “renunciamiento.” All these documents show us how different realities can be portrayed through media, be it radio in the 1940s or online articles today. The texts show us how powerful the government was and is today to be able to influence society into thinking certain ways through forms of media such as: radio, TV, newspapers, etc. It was a way for political leaders to reach out to the “humble” “working class” people and convince them to believe in them so that they could remain in power. This way, the “audience” or national community is able to connect with the words said by such leaders and come together to promote their rights as the working class across the country, promoting the industrialization processes that make the region rich. Since times like these, the reliability of media communication is questioned, leading to the distrust of such sources.

I found the texts and films to be very interesting as it was able to provide different perspectives on the relationship between the United States and Latin America. In the first text, Sandino provides a more traditional perspective and shows less of a concern with the parochial battles between liberals and conservatives than about the larger influence of the United States on Nicaragua. He believes in the unity of Latin America as the means of fighting against imperialism, similar to Simon Bolivar’s dream, as we read about before.

The film titled “Silent War” on the other hand, was a more generous view of the relationship between the United States and Latin America. It focuses on the aid and investment that the United States provided as effective means of promoting economic progress and modernization. However, I feel like the consequences of such intended ways of ‘helping’ are dismissed, neglecting the negative social effects these changes have caused in Latin American countries when trying to improve infrastructure.

In the film “Journey to Banana Land,” the positive impacts of UFCO in Guatemala are portrayed. It is seen as a powerful source for interrogating a series of other assumptions about class, gender and ethnicity. The video almost sounds like a commercial, where the culture of Guatemala (from the city to the highlands) are shown in very positive way, comparing it numerous times to the United States.

Additionally, Dorfman and Mattelart deliver a critique of the US imperialism in the 1960s. They believe one must understand a set of assumptions about the modern and primitive world in order to understand American imperial practices. They say cartoons were created to serve as instruments of imperialism and provides multiple examples of such concept. This is a very interesting perspective as disney world and cartoons are usually not seen as a means of controlling other countries’ ways of thinking as shown in the Donald example.

In Ruben Dario’s poem, he alternatively offers an overturn to the North American assumptions about their own superiority. In Zapata’s text he declares a war against Madero, for not complying with the promises he made and has intentionally ignored and silenced the pueblos who demand from him the fulfillment of the promises he made. This I find to be very typical of Latin American leaders. Every presidential election within the past decades in Peru, have started with many promises and ended with none completed. In Jose Vasconcelo’s excerpt, he provides us with 3 laws or stages indicated by the law of personal taste as the basis of all human relationships. These include the material or warlike (only matter rules), the intellectual or political (where reason prevails) and the spiritual or aesthetic (sought in creative feeling). Writing in the aftermath of the conflict, Vasconcelos is driven by a desire to reconstitute and celebrate a torn country and actively participates in the reconstruction process. Through his celebration he strongly embraces hybridity as mankind’s best hope where the best qualities of all races will be saved and the worst discarded. Finally, in the last document, Jose Carlos Mariategui provides in his essay acknowledges Marxists, who combine the political ideology of those who advocated the 1919 general strike in Buenos Aires, Argentina, focusing on the rural problems that shape the Peruvian leftists. Instead of focusing on an emergent working class, he sees indigenous peoples of Peru as the source of an organic form of communism. He believes it is not the modern proletarians who will defeat capitalism in Peru, but the communist Indians. I somewhat agree with this last statemenent and I feel like it is hard for people to consider/understand mainly because they see the Indian “economy” or “society” as backwards or primitive and have a hard time adopting their ways of life in todays modern world.

I found this chapter to be rather significant as it played a huge role in the creation of ‘modern’ Latin America. As portrayed in the document which is an interview between an American journalist and the President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, one can acknowledge the physical transformation in the country’s landscape as connections between Mexico and other countries increased in the early 20th century, accelerating the pace towards a ‘civilized’ and constructed society. The export boom as defined by Dawson was a “tragedy which inequalities deepened and were further entrenches, where certain forms of violence intensified and the victimization of the region at the hands of the outside world was re-inscribed through a unique global system.” This transformative step that was taken by various Latin American countries, specifically Mexico as the document shows, was a step in my perspective towards an unsustainable form of living. The need (greed) for more became more widespread among Latin America and local systems were unable to keep up with the consumerist mindset of the people inhabiting these areas, therefore, a global system became a much more prioritized and wanted system by the elites, the ones who controlled and shaped Latin America’s future. I feel like this dream towards a more ‘connected’ and ‘integrated’ global system is a trap where people feel more connected because of the greater access to resources, technology and an increase in the capability of what one can do. However, it neglects very important environmental concepts that form part of who we are. The relationship between humans and their environment was completely forgotten and the focus was put merely on humans. Just as we saw in prior readings were men were receiving an unequal amount of rights compared to women and slaves, in this new “export boom” society, the main focus is given to the human species, forgetting the components that make up who we are– nature and the valuable ‘resources’ they provide for our survival.  Thus, complex civilizations are formed, with cities becoming centres of trade creating a materialistic world where goods and services are exchanged converting resources as infinitely able to be extracted rather than understanding the limits to a balanced world.

I found this chapter, including the documents, very interesting as it provided a broad range of perspectives from people who thought differently about race and gender throughout the 19th century in Latin America. In Peru for example there was a clear racial divide– deep fragmentation became noticeable, where clearing of indigenous lands left new territory open for white settlers to turn to “productive” ends. This is still actively being done today. Although in quieter ways, the Peruvian government is still trying to force indigenous peoples out of the territories they have been living on for years.

Clearly, emancipation was perceived and experienced differently across Latin America. This involved complex stories of pressured from the outside world, internal elite conflicts and pressure from slaves themselves. Additionally, the reaction of people to emancipation in their country was also very different across the continent. Former slaves in Cuba focused on creating stable families and communities, leaving political organizing for individual rights for later. The Cuban government made it difficult for coloured people to move up the social classes, while in Brazil it was very much facilitated.

Something that struck me was the amount of discrimination in Cuba towards coloured people. They were casted out for being “dangerous primitives, a threat to national progress.” However, how was progress defined then? What kind of development were they looking at? Afro-Cuban traditions were particularly targeted as they were  perceived as an epidemic of savagery, creating a widespread idea of fear towards these people.

Out of the five documents at the end of the chapter, I really enjoyed the last one. Although I didn’t really agree with the purpose of the text, it portrayed a very different perspective on gender equality that I had never seen before. Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta believed the emancipation of women was unattainable and even harmful if ever attained and that God made women the way they are for a reason. Thus, the destiny of women could not be the same as the destiny of men as women have that loving, nurturing, caring characteristic that defines who they are.  Overall, the compilation of documents were people or either against or for the abolishment of  slavery and/or emancipation of women provided a very diverse set of perspectives that is very much a feature of Latin American culture.