Category Archives: Meeting of Two Worlds

Week 3 – The Colonial Experience

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This week we peaked into what the early times of post-colonization looked like and the ways in which identities were changed, erased and created. We did this through examining the popular artworks known as casta paintings and through the life of Catalina de Erauso.

Casta paintings are a series of panels that each depict a family unit with a label as to what combination of races that family is. They are a way of giving a taxonomy to the racial mixes that occurred as a result of colonization of the Americas and the import of African slaves. I did find it surprising that there were so many more slaves brought to Brazil than to other places in the New world as I have never heard of the history or the modern day effects of slavery in Brazil as I have with countries like the US.

The casta paintings depict the racial hierarchy with the more pale Spaniards and spanish descendants wearing better clothes and having more professional jobs and the darker skinned mulatos, indians and zambos being portrayed as coachmen, vendors, shoemakers. In addition to giving a taxonomy and hierarchy to the racial mixes, casta paintings also enforced gender norms to some degree. Some panels, usually those depicting lower-ranking racial statuses, display gender-based violence and others depicting women in typical gender roles such as seamstresses and cooks.

The story of Catalina de Erauso was in stark contrast to the attempt of casta paintings to control and delineate gender and racial identities. Catalina, born and raised as a woman decided to escape her dull life as a nun and disguise herself as a man. As a man she had a lot of opportunities and adventures which took her to the New World. Her story reminded me somewhat of Mulan except as the translators Michele and Gabriel Stepto point out, “the rewards of her transformation were gained almost wholly at the expense of the victims of colonialism”. Again, we are faced with a character who in some ways was a pioneer and perhaps a hero but at the same time she was a murderous conquistador.

I found it particularly interesting that when Catalina revealed herself, she was not punished. In a society that went so far as to delineate hierarchies and status of races and genders as to create casta paintings, why was Catalina not punished when she revealed her biological sex to king Phillip and to the Pope Urban?

Week 2

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This week’s content delved into “the meeting of the two worlds” in which Columbus and his crew arrived on what was come to be known as the “New World” and later the “Indies”. I found this particularly interesting as it provided me with more information on a historical event that I have heard a lot about but never had a formal teaching on.

The things that most struck me were:

From the lecture video, the discussion of Todorov’s views on the meeting of two worlds. Todorov views the discovery of America as the invention of modern Europe in the sense that it identifies itself as “not America”. I found this to be such an interesting way to think of modern identities, especially in terms of the place we identify with. Thinking more broadly, this framework also sheds light on how Columbus, his crew and other colonizers from Europe were thinking. They do not identify with this place or its people – they are the “other” or the “not self”. This helps to contextualize how they were able to go about conquering and colonizing. If we think of their actions without this context, they definitely seem quite evil. But at the time, they did not realize what they were doing was wrong in such a dichotic way but rather they were driven by motives of faith and state.

I was very fascinated while reading some of Columbus’s journal and finding how often and how brazenly he misrepresented things to his crew. In addition to this obvious falsification, he is continually trying to convince his crew, himself and those who will later read his journal/letters that he is in Asia despite mounting evidence to the contrary. It certainly makes one question the credibility of his account and for me it detracts from him being either a “villain” or a “hero”. This makes him seem more and more like someone who doesn’t deserve either title seeing as he was unaware of his actions let alone their effects.

I also found it interesting to learn that the term “Indies” refers to the high altitude of the land of the “New World”. In dies means “land of the day” and from this, the natives came to be called “Indians”. Before learning this I had assumed that the people they found in the New world were called Indians because Columbus was convinced that he was in Asia.

Week 1 Post – Reviewing Student’s Videos

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Our introductory task for Latin American Studies 100 was to review the videos made by students of the previous year. In general, I was very impressed by the creativity and knowledge of the students and I am definitely looking forward to learning more in this course. The videos I watched were,

  1. Independence in Latin America:
    • Things I liked:
      • I thought the way that they had one central narrator who walked around to interview different people who had one topic made it dynamic
      • The filming was good and the speakers were clearly very knowledgable
      • I like how at the end, those who were from Latin America spoke from their own lived experience about how they view independence
      • They looked at independence in a multi-faceted way – in terms of key figures, causes, impacts, how it was received – and I think this provides a good picture for viewers
    • Things that could be better:
      • A couple of the areas they filmed had poor lighting and the filming could have been more steady/ less shaky
      • When they use the map and the writing on the whiteboard, both things are backwards/reversed because the camera flipped the images
  2. Caudillos
    • Things I liked:
      • I thought it was very creative to have audio over hand-drawn images and written text
      • I liked how they compared to modern times/people e.g. Trump, and how they qualify all of their more negative statements of these “Caudillos” with how their actions did end up paving the way for some good things that make Latin America what it is today
    • Things that could be improved:
      • The camera was pretty shaky which made the quality of the video poor and hard to follow
      • Some of the drawings and writing was very messy and I think it could have been a lot better had they put more time/care into having it look neat
  3. The Meeting of the Two Worlds III
    • Things I liked:
      • I really liked the idea of using paintings and animated videos to provide the visuals while having student’s audio narrate
      • They picked appropriate images/videos for each part e.g. when talking about the three ships, they had image of three ships
      • I like how they used direct quotes from Columbus
    • Things that could have been improved:
      • I think the narration was clear but could have been more animated like a story teller
      • The music was a little loud and was the same throughout where as I think if they had  used different music to set the tone for good/sad/bad moments in the story then it would have had more positive effect
  4. The War on Drugs;
    • Things I liked:
      • The narration is clear and the tone they use fits the images and topic
      • I like how they highlighted key people and specific drugs and the roles they play in this
    • Things that could have been improved
      • I liked how they had an interview with someone from the region but this could have been more polished/rehearsed since they “broke character” a couple times and it is such a serious topic that this detracted from the tone of the video