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Latin American culture is very heterogeneous and varies a lot depending on the region, still there are some similarities, that’s why the text uses three big areas on its attempt to describe it, the Andean region, Brazil and Mexico. Ever since the Conq…

Despite being very long, this journal article was by far the best (out of the ones we have read so far). It captivated me for all 101 pages of it. Some of the pages did drag a tad bit but overall I was very pleased with the read.

    The parts I enjoy were the ones in which the author talked about traditional cultures not becoming extinct in Latin America but instead becoming the focus of what is different in Latin America as opposed to North America. Most of information about the Amerindians i knew before, as I have been to Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina, which all have the issues with their native populations being extremely poor (as Schelling and William have stated). For someone who has never been to Latin America or studied Latin American culture this section could have proved very useful.

     This essay really takes you to those remote locations of South and Latin America such as Mexico and Bolivia among others. I also enjoyed the parts that explained the Cultural traditions and the ways in which they were created. The parts about the colonial powers and religious institutions playing large roles in both the formation and creation of certain cultural aspects of Latin America.

It’s funny when comparing these cultural rituals and histories to my own North American cultural I find some similarities and many differences. This is because the Amerindians here were not so heavily influential into our infrastructure when we were a young nation, and they did not mix as much with the immigrating population. They still too suffered many of the same unfortunate diseases, weapons and slaver as they’re Latin American counter parts. Its funny because when one thinks about specifically North American culture, people think of fast food and consumerism, but when one thinks about Latin America they picture the natives and the rich ancient history that lies within its holdings.

This reading was lengthy and detailed giving a good explanation of the variations in popular culture throughout Latin America. I personally have a limited pot of knowledge concerning Latin American history, and have found myself thus far trying to grasp the concept of ‘Latin American pop culture’ as a lump concept. Indeed there are many […]

        Ok so out of all our readings thus far, this is by far my favorite.  Although somewhat lengthy, I enjoyed every bit of this reading.  Some of it was a little tedious to read but I’d say one out of all the pages  one was tedious, in my opinion. 
The thing I enjoyed the most was the fact that the author went into great detail about specific Latin American pop culture.  For someone who has never taken a course on Latin America and who knows relatively nothing about it, this article made it easier to put a picture to a name.
I am so interested in other cultures and have traveled to many diferent places outside of Canada and the US, and Latin America is one of the places I am most interested in visiting and learning about.  I love to learn about the different cultural practices of people far away and relate them to my culture or those I know of.
This essay really brought me to all the little corners of Peru, Argentina and others, places I can only dream about and have.  I really enjoyed the background and the history which really put their different cultural practices in a new light.  I had so many questions about this population of people that just simply learning about their various ideas of pop culture, wouldn’t give me such an in depth view of them but this essay really helped.
After reading this essay, I now have a better idea of what popular culture really is.  The thing that really drove it home for me was how the author explisitly tells us that the ideas of these cultures are imbedded into every day life.  That the meaning of every day life is what is popular culture.  The seemingly mundane aspects of life have incredible meaning in places where such things aren’t so readily taken for granted.  The idea that their history is played out in every day life is a powerful idea.  They use oral and written tradition to pass down onto future generations what they  think are the most important things in life.  The idea that these spoken and written traditions are heavely embedded into their every day lives is important in understanding their way of life.
This essay brought me into their theatre, where history is played out and their songs and music are ways in which they connect with the world around them.  The mere thought of having a dance to celebrate the changing of the year and seasons is an amazing thought that brings the world and human nature closer together.  In a world where we rarely focus on the earth in our daily lives, this culture/s is deeply intwined with the earth and nature.
Their practices do not just bring them closer with the world around them but connect them with the past and future.  Their stories and plays tell the truths of how their political system has come to be, how they have maintained faith and how they associate themselves with the outer world and community.  I love that each word they say, eachsond or dance they perform is full of meaning, spilling over into a culture of people who take this meaning seriously.
I compare it to Western culture due to the fact that it seems we are so much the opposite.  Not ever in my daily life do I truly encounter anything that makes me think, or question (other than school) our current situation.  I am never met by singing people where their words become my own but then if it were my popular culture, I would also be involved.  I don’t have any groups of people I sit with and talk about our world and the way it’s come to be and nowhere are there instruments that are connected to the seasons, that I know of in my popular culture.  I would love it if my reality was presented in a way such as dance, song and profound lyrical stories, then perhaps I would be more inclined to listen. 
Instead I live in a world where danc e and music have become so sexualized that it’s often difficult to find a real story in lyrics and I do listen for them. The reason I dream of their ppopular culture practices is that it seems real.  Everything in my reality seems fake, or not tangible.  You can’t go to a hockey game and say that that is our reality and our world passed down from generation to generation, is there nothing else? And if there was something else, would anyone listen? Does anyone even care?
I would love to sit on a mountain somewhere and just take it all in, the nature, the realness of it all.  In a world where it seems most things are based on superficiality, can we actually see the real from the fake?  Now that I’ve finished the reading, I long for other people’s popular culture instead of my own.

This weeks reading of “The Faces of Popular Culture” by Rowe William and Vivian Schelling opened my eyes to new prespectives and ideas of culture in Latin America and what that actually entails. From the beggining of the essay it was evidence the impor…

What is popular Culture in Latin America?Creo que definir la cultura popular de Latin America es muy complicado, así como cuando tratamos de definir la cultura y el significado de las personas. El articulo de esta semana tenía muchos ejemplos de lo …

I find discussions of the people to be very interesting. Across the globe there are wealthy ruling classes which have some level of control over the masses and there is the rest of the people who are subjected to the decisions of the ruling class. The …

I found Evita Peron’s reading to be much easier to follow than the previous two readings and enjoyed it more, however I did not get who are the people. This reading seems to be very personal, political and emotional. We can take a look at what she thin…

I don’t know about the rest of the class, but I certainly had a hard time rounding my head around the excerpt from Peron. It just seems to me that Peron as a person, and Peronism as an ideology just seem to be full of contradictions. To be honest, more than contradiction between ideology and […]

I actually quite enjoyed both of these pieces assigned for this week. Evitas message, I found, was inspiring and poetic.. however not quite realistic. She lumps together the people of an entire nation making emphasis on ‘women.’ She makes bold points about escaping imperialism and exploitation, but she does so by saying that everyone wants the […]

This week’s readings for the subject “the People” left me with a lot to consider.  Peronism as a political ideology has always been a little problematic for me in that (at least in my perception) its underlying philosophy, while supporting “the people” or the working-class, it does so at the expense of alienating a large portion of the privileged population.  It has always seemed to me that the political ideology of Peronism appears much better in theory than in execution.  The two pieces that we read this week only further contribute to this perception of Peronism for me. 

Eva Perón’s work, “My Message” also contributed to my own conflicted feelings regarding this particular controversial political figure.  Throughout the piece, her description of “the people” and the so-called “descamisados”  leads me to question her motivations for writing such a piece.  Who exactly are “the people” she writes so passionately for?  Obviously she is referring to the “race” of the lower/working-class (as opposed to the elite “race” of politicians, oligarchs, privileged clergy, etc.), yet beyond this huge generalization we get no more information about the identity of these “people” from whence she came.  These generalizations are problematic for me, not only in her use of the word “race” (a social construction in itself) to characterize groups divided by economic opportunity but in her attempt to polarize a broad spectrum of culture, backgrounded, belief, and political alignment.  I find Eva’s message to the people a bit contrived and theatricized; an attempt to unite people for a common goal which  ultimately divides a nation’s population and encourages passion without rationality, political extremists and fanaticism.  While I’m aware that Eva Perón represents a powerful political figure who attempted to represent the under-represented, this “Message” only confirms my previous assessment of her as a calculating, fervent demagogue with quite an agenda.  I’m aware that this is a controversial statement about such a famous figure, but I invite further discussion!  While I have my own impressions, she remains a mystery to me. 

In regards to the Borges piece, I have to admit that it left me a little confused.  Perhaps this is because I’m not totally used to reading Borges in English, or to reading his more political, non-fiction work.  I could probably do with a better understanding of the historical/political perspective for this piece, however I did find some parts very interesting.  I feel that in comparison to Eva’s “Message,” “In Celebration of the Monster” provides a significantly more colourful, complete image of “the people.”  The story creates an almost impressionistic image of (what I believe is) a descamisado, in a violent interaction with non-Peronists.  While the images in this piece are violent and slightly disturbing, they provide much deeper representation of human characteristics and emotion than Eva Perón’s stylized, stereotyped descamisado. 

I feel that both readings for this week, while portraying an extremely specific facet of the Latin American pueblo, give us some interesting material to think about.  These readings show how contentious terms like “the people” are and invite us to think a little more critically about our expectations for the course.  They demonstrate that in studying a topic so broad as Latin American popular culture, we cannot be satisfied with stereotypes and generalizations. 

Las dos lecturas de esta semana fueron muy interesantes por que nos permiten ver dos posturas casi completamente opuestas respecto a una idea o régimen. Por un lado Eva Perón describe en su obra:My message, una postura un tanto radical, en la que ido…

Eva Peron’s discussion of “the people” is confusing, particular, exacting and seemingly un-populated. If she claims that her Argentina, in its true essence, is the people then perhaps she should have been more inclusive. Whatever the case may be, this term “the people” is ambiguous to me. Having read the Borges paper […]

Eva Peron’s article no doubt fits under the category of those political speeches that are written with the intention of uniting “a people”, but only result in the exposition of custom-made fictitious divides. The amount of sentiment stirring within her…

The concept of the people seems difficult to understand. Does the word it mean nation? Does it symbolize a particular class of people?
I was quite disappointed when I read the text of Eva Peron, first, because I did not find a clear answer to my questions, then, because I expected to an objective definition of […]

This week’s readings have to do with different interpretations of “the people”, as expressed by Eva Perón and then Jorge Luis Borges. The two have opposing views of what the people are, and of Perón’s government. Eva Perón’s text is very emotional and dramatic, and it seems like she has a great and genuine love for the people. She considers the people to be the ordinary citizens—the workers, the women, and the exploited. She talks a lot about how when people reach high places in society, then get “dizzy”, overwhelmed with the glamour and the status, but she never let herself get absorbed into this life, and always remained one with the people. She talks about how the government, the military, and the clergy exploit the people, and how the “enemies” of the people are deceitful. She focuses a great portion of her message on condemning the enemies of her husband, and on praising Perón’s greatness as a leader. Although Perón and his ideals are something that she is obviously passionate about, I think she goes too far in her praise of him, as it almost seems like she is blindly following him. The fact that her and her husband’s presidency was labeled a dictatorship by many shows that maybe she actually was not fully in touch with the people, or serving them the way she describes herself as doing. Besides this, there are a lot of things I liked about Eva Perón’s text. I like how she talked about love and hatred, how she never knows which one she is feeling, and that indifference is the worst thing. Passion (whether it is in the form of love or hate) is what stirs the hearts of the people and causes them to stand up for their ideals. I also really liked what she said about how religion should be used to “lift the heads of the people” not used as a tool of oppression to make the people bow. I think her opposition to the corruption of the Church, but her embracement of religion (or spirituality in general) is something that many, including me, can relate to.

Borges’ text had an opposing view to Eva Perón’s text, calling Perón’s presidency as the “Monster”. Borges tells talks about the people revolting against Perón…or at least that’s what I think he is talking about, as I couldn’t really understand what was really going on in the story. I found the part where they stone the Jewish man to death was kind of shocking, especially because I don’t really know why they did that. I am guessing that if they did have a reason for stoning him, it was because he was a supporter of Perón. Judging by this text, Eva Perón would not really be one with the people, as she repeatedly claims she is in My Message if the people are so extremely opposed to her Perón. The two readings seem to be to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, both expressing very extreme views of Perón.

This week’s readings have to do with different interpretations of “the people”, as expressed by Eva Perón and then Jorge Luis Borges. The two have opposing views of what the people are, and of Perón’s government. Eva Perón’s text is very emotional and dramatic, and it seems like she has a great and genuine love for the people. She considers the people to be the ordinary citizens—the workers, the women, and the exploited. She talks a lot about how when people reach high places in society, then get “dizzy”, overwhelmed with the glamour and the status, but she never let herself get absorbed into this life, and always remained one with the people. She talks about how the government, the military, and the clergy exploit the people, and how the “enemies” of the people are deceitful. She focuses a great portion of her message on condemning the enemies of her husband, and on praising Perón’s greatness as a leader. Although Perón and his ideals are something that she is obviously passionate about, I think she goes too far in her praise of him, as it almost seems like she is blindly following him. The fact that her and her husband’s presidency was labeled a dictatorship by many shows that maybe she actually was not fully in touch with the people, or serving them the way she describes herself as doing. Besides this, there are a lot of things I liked about Eva Perón’s text. I like how she talked about love and hatred, how she never knows which one she is feeling, and that indifference is the worst thing. Passion (whether it is in the form of love or hate) is what stirs the hearts of the people and causes them to stand up for their ideals. I also really liked what she said about how religion should be used to “lift the heads of the people” not used as a tool of oppression to make the people bow. I think her opposition to the corruption of the Church, but her embracement of religion (or spirituality in general) is something that many, including me, can relate to.

Borges’ text had an opposing view to Eva Perón’s text, calling Perón’s presidency as the “Monster”. Borges tells talks about the people revolting against Perón…or at least that’s what I think he is talking about, as I couldn’t really understand what was really going on in the story. I found the part where they stone the Jewish man to death was kind of shocking, especially because I don’t really know why they did that. I am guessing that if they did have a reason for stoning him, it was because he was a supporter of Perón. Judging by this text, Eva Perón would not really be one with the people, as she repeatedly claims she is in My Message if the people are so extremely opposed to her Perón. The two readings seem to be to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, both expressing very extreme views of Perón.

I find Jorge Luis Borges a brilliant author. His peculiar writing guides a world of fiction and metaphors into our consciousness that naturally builds up in a complexity of cultural and political inferences. The short-story ‘A Celebration of the Monste…

While I was reading Eva Peron’s “My Message” I couldn’t help myself laugh a bit, not because I’m mocking her writing but because I’ve heard this perception of the people from many (especially politicians) over the years. “El pueblo” (as…

Who are these people that Eva Perón loves so much that their suffering causes her pain? According to her, they are the women, the workers, the poor and the humble; and she loves them all, for they are “her” people. To Eva, the wife of former Argen…

The two readings for this week represent two very differing views. The first one, by Eva Peron, Juan Peron’s extremely devoted wife, supports Peronism to the point of almost deifying Peron himself. The other, by this guy Borges, is very critical of P…

I found Evita’s article to be quite touching. She was once a powerful woman but now as she gets past that phase in her life she wants to give her country and people one last gift, TRUTH. She talks about how much people lie in politics. Her word choice is optimal and the article flows very nicely. She goes on to talk about her husband and their relationship, with each other and with politics. She compliments him saying that he was also like her, fierce, fiery and most of all passionate. She did however find he a little bit too cocky. Peron talks a lot about the ‘people’ of Argentina she is trying to show that even though these people are separated by economic and social status (especially the poor) they all have a common goal for Argentina as a whole. Peron`s views on the future of Argentina are optimal, but at the same time I feel very unrealistic. Although if it were anyone to unite the people in Argentina it would be Evita Peron, and in order for the goals she listed they must be united. Only when as a society a country wants better for itself and to achieve justice, freedom and equality can change really happen.

Unfortunately for myself I don`t know a lot about Argentina during the time that this article was published. It really showed the “Monster“ , and how the people can sometimes be the enemy. In this case the people are the army. Much of what he said reminded me of military totalitarianism that was prevalent during the most wars. I found it interesting that both these authors have opposing opinions to one another. They both also feel that they are doing the right thing, so which one is right? It is hard to determine. On the one hand people like Peron, believe they are doing right, but others may views them as reckless leaders that are only thinking of their own personal gains.

Eva Peron’s “My Message” was an amazing essay! I thought it was passionate, insightful, real, and surprisingly easy to follow. She talked about fanaticism for the people and her country and I believe no one could be more fanatic about her people, her c…

Concerning Eva Perón’s text, I would like to highlight three main points. First of all, to define what she calls “the people”, “her people”, she uses a specific lexical field choosing terms such as “race” of the people, or “blood” of the enemies. This…

When I found out that our reading for this week were selections from Eva Peron and Jorge Luis Borges, I was very excited. Having read two short stories by Borges before, Emma Zunz and The book of sand, I thought I was prepared for this piece of writing…

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