Hello, bonjour and buenos días. My name is Safiya. I’m Canadian-Trinidadian. I’m a fourth year student in International Relations program and I recently changed my minor from Spanish to Latin American Studies hence the reason why I am in this course. I’m interested in Latin America because of its rich history, diverse culture and dynamic nature. It is an important region in the world for the reasons I mentioned and many more. Since Latin America is the Global South in the Western Hemisphere, it is closer than we imagine. We are connected to Latin America in more ways than we imagine. That is through our colonial history since Vancouver once saw the arrival of Spanish explorers and much of our fresh fruits are imported from Central and South America.

My birthplace and upbringing plays a strong role in my gravitation to Latin American studies as Trinidad, is not categorized as being in Latin America but rather the West Indies, I grew up with a sense of familiarity with the region, being located close to it. I was taught Spanish in secondary school and remember, as a girl, that there was a segment on the news exclusively about Latin America… At the time, Hugo Chávez was often the centre of the news story. I also see how divergent they can be. Trinidad is only 7 miles away from Venezuela, sharing rich oil reserves, one is capitalist and the other is socialist. One speaks Spanish and one speaks English.

I am particularly intrigued by development in the region which I believe should be unique to each country’s economic needs and in a way that fosters autonomy rather than promoting neo-colonialism. I’m trilingual and in December of 2018, I went to Cartagena de Indias, Colombia to teach English for 2 weeks. It was short but certainly had a significant impact to my understanding of the region.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my blog posts.