I’m writing this post late into the night because I’ve only recently finished my economics paper. I’m suffering from a huge head ache and reading the eternaut on my computer screen is causing me to much pain so I’ll only be able to discuss mafalda. Growing up my mother would always make references to mafalda and though I can’t really remember the exact context I do remember the general theme of the comic strip. Reading over these few sections I quickly realized that the general style of Mafalda consists of a child remarking upon something that is well beyond the childs stage of maturity. This sort of dry ironic humor was pretty funny and I definitely thought about the implications of this style. Specifically, it certainly made me think about the transition between childhood into adulthood and the jaded cynical perspectives an adult usually has compared to a child. Mafalda did a great job of questioning this using the motif of parenthood and school to question positions of authority in the life of I child. I sincerely hope that somewhere out there a parent is regularly showing these strips to their child and indoctrinating them with some real angsty and pessimistic (but humorous) tendencies because it really reminds me of myself when I was around 13. In terms of Latin American pop culture its hard for me to pick up any glaring themes of the comic strips related to latin america as a whole although im sure they’re in there somewhere. The only obvious one I could pick up was the strips critique of telenovelas evading any level of intelligence. This posed a question in my head that made me wonder if a certain level of intelligence was required in order to fully grasp the content of mafalda. Too add to this I wonder how accessible this publication is and whether or not theres a cost to picking up the news paper I believe this would be found in. Similarly, this made me question whether or not children would have different interpretations of each strip compared to adults and how age plays into understanding this form of media. Thanks for tuning in and keep on rocking in the free world doot

I found this reading to be very interesting and as well as being an easier read than the previous readings. Before taking this class I was also in a Latin american revolution class that discussed Subcommandante Marcos in a more detailed way. Knowing what I know about Marcos I think the article does a very good job at outlining his revolutionary campaign and relating it to popular culture. Specifically, the article emphasized the anonymity and the mystery surrounding marcos and how that created a stronger message. One part of this article I did disagree was the classification of marcos as the first post-modern revolutionary and specifically his use of media and the radio. Looking towards the cuban revolution, Che Guevara was a master of radio communications and his radio skills were extremely instrumental in the success of the revolution. Subcommandante Marcos did indeed use modern media outlets such as the new york times in an effective way, but his incorporation of the radio was by no means original or post-modern. In addition to this I believe the anonymity of Marcos’ revolution served solely as a means to include the entirety of mexico’s population in a unified struggle whilst also removing the power dynamic that comes into play with revolutionary leaders. This tactic itself isn’t necessarily post-modern and in my opinion this classification is just part of his romanticization which is also important to talk about.

Beltran on Lopez was similarly an interesting read that lead me to question the representation of latin celebrities in a capitalist and post-colonialist era. The sentiments and connotations carried within the body of a latin person, specifically of a latina have always been largely constructed by the media and Lopez is a perfect example of how the sexualization of latinas has contributed to an archetype of all latin american people. Additionally, it is interesting to me the line that is drawn between proper representation of latin american identity and commodification of latin america beeple and culture. I personally think it is vital for latin americans to have some form of representation in western culture and Jennifer Lopez does a good job at representing that, but it is important to make a distinction between representation and commodification in order for culture to be preserved.

Okay so I have 3 midterms this week and only had time to read Mexican Muralism and the Offical Public Sphere so my blog will mainly focus on that. Before I get into the actual text, throughout the reading I found myself googling a lot of the art work of the artists mentioned and I found a really cool website that has most of these artists work compiled –  https://www.wikiart.org/en/artists-by-nation/mexican

All three of the main muralists have pretty much every mural uploaded in High Rez and i spent about an hour looking at artists from latin america.

Getting into the actual article I found it very interesting. I didn’t know too much regarding the history of muralism in mexico, but I was familiar with some of the murals and their themes. Primarily, I think the main takeaway from this article is that Muralism wasn’t an entirely natural artistic movement. What I mean to say by this is that the roots of Mexican Muralism were somewhat forced. This most obviously struck me when talking about Vasconcelos vision as education minister. The article denotes his plans for muralism and his intended effects of its institution in national identity. Most importantly there is one section where Vasconcelos expects the recreation of certain western classical literary themes in his commisioned murals. During this time the artists behind the creation of murals where instead focusing on indigenous mexican history. Another interesting part of this article was the Author defining a clear purpose of murals. Murals can so successfully transmit nationalist themes through their place in a community and can also offer easily understood political discourse to a less educated population. Throughout the article it struck me that the muralism of mexico was very anti-capitalist and the big 3 had murals that empowered the proletariat as well as depicted a communal sense of creation(the rich people, 1924, Orozco/ death of the capitalist, Rivera 1929/ death to the invader, Siquieros, 1941) The irony of the state sanctioned murals was their obvious stance against the state. Beyond from what I’ve said I had a hard time understanding a lot of the actual history but i think the main point was that the government played a heavy role in the politicization of these artworks and this resulted in the decline of the form as an artistic industry.

Right of the bat Cosmic Race has me intrigued with mentions of evolution and race superiority and relating it to the mestizaje. The words Cosmic Race lead me to believe this will be about the eventual race mixture of every child in the world. Not sure if how I feel about him saying that christianity was the factor that led to the “civilizing” of the south american indigenous. The author is definitely talking about atlantis because he knows this paper is gonna be to boring for anyone to stick around. \okay this guy is so wild I have no clue what he’s on about talking about like the anglo saxon/hispanic racial war. He discusses how we should find pride in our colonizers and laments/blames latin americas loss in the new world on napoleon. He also briefly mentions the 5th stage of humanity that will be ushered in by the white culture, not really sure what he means. Also Black, indian, mongolian, and white is a pretty simple way of putting it lol. “No Race Returns” he makes a pretty convincing argument in this paragraph that there’s no escaping the latinization of the continent. The “ethnic vision” has got me a little cautious reading this but I understand what he’s getting at in saying that the color of humanity will reach an end point. “the final empire of white supremacy” This dude has me inspired I have no clue what is going on but his argument is so captivating and understandable. The latin american tendancy to mix race vs the anglo saxon attempts a perserving a single race. This whole subject feels a little controversial but his argument makes a lot of sense and definitely isnt like an ethnic cleansing perspective.  OKay so I skipped towards the last 6 pages and this guy has a really elaborate plan/prophecy for the joining of races that im not entirely sure is plausible. It seems to me that a lot of his argument is rhetoric and he spends most of his time convincing rather than proving. His end goal is a cosmic fifth race made up of all the best elements of each race as well as all their cultures combined. This is definitely an interesting perspective on culture or the future of it because so far I think a lot of us can agree that there is some boundary to mixture of cultures or the expansions of it (mosaic kind of thing)

Federico

As always I started this weeks readings with some research on the authors. Miguel Angel Asturias is definitely a very well regarded author is more than qualified to write about the topics in his stories. Asturias first story legend of the singing tablets was so incredibly captivating and colourful. His prose invoked so many beautiful images into my mind regarding indigenous culture in pre-colonial Latin america. I think legend of the singing tablets was meant to recognize the importance of song and written culture, specifically symbology in indigenous culture. The wonderful images of moon and the singing competition the usage of cycles encapsulates a lot of themes in pre-colonialization latin american indigenous culture.

Legend of the crystal masks was just as colorful and the introduction of the sentient creation of beings like jaguars and giants had me rereading lines and basking in the lyrical component of the story. I don’t think I was fully able to grasp the meaning of this piece but I did catch on to the mention of colonialization and white people. More importantly the ending was very jarring. The natural betrayal of man by his own creation is somewhat symbolic of the cycle of life. Creation then death. I’m not sure I understand the meaning of nurse rain but the blindness and the mask invoke an image of complacency. I think it might be about how the indigenous people were receptive of the colonizers and the blindness to their effects. Honestly the story was so absolutely beautiful I’m kind of amazed.

Legend of the Silent bell was a very creepy story in my opinion. The gold imagery I think was used to denote the colonial extraction of latin american resources, specifically gold. The story was easier to grasp in terms of thematics; the obvious struggle between colonial and indigenous identity, the betrayal of christians and the piracy. The gold, silver, bronze bells. The sacrificial element of indigenous property. Taking away from all these stories I think Asturias attempted to preserve the beauty of indigneity (indian nun) whilst also exposing the internal struggles of the colonized and the usurption of culture. Asturias uses notable latin american symbols like gold, jaguars, snakes, the moon and sun, and contrasting that with spanish imagery like christian religion, the bell all the wealth being melted into the bell. Asturias stories capture intrinisic elements of latin american identity struggles bursting with colors.

After finishing each of this weeks readings I think I can safely say that I have no idea what is going on. About half way through Peron’s writing I decided to do some research on her and found out a lot about her history and her husbands political career. Reading about her life and subsequent death was pretty astounding especially the funeral procession that Argentina held for her. To be honest I had never heard about her or her husband at all in my life but my quick wiki browsing left me quite intrigued and I learnt a lot about Argentina.

In terms of her writing I did enjoy reading it but after a while it got kind of boring. It feels like a speech and I’m sure that if I had been listening to someone read this in an invigorating and passionate tone (which probably isn’t hard, this piece is very heartfelt in my opinion) I would be captivated and inspired by her words. The messages she sends the people are anti-imperialist and pro workers reform especially in agriculture and industrial setting. Her strategy of demonizing the oligarchs probably won her a lot of favour with the working class that was being exploited.

Reading Borges at 1 am was probably a bad idea because I literally have no idea what is going on. I’m not sure if it’s me fading in and out of sleep but the best I could gather from his writing was that he was expressing opposite views of Peron. Borges achieves this by writing a story of one mans adventures which ultimately lead to the unwarranted death of another. The writing is difficult to follow unlike Perons and provides a ficticous account of the negatives of group mentality in order to critique the followers of Peron.

Of both these writings I much preferred Perons but I will be going back later this week to try and reread Borges. During my readings I learned much about the political history of Argentina in the 20th century and I’m excited to discuss the readings and politics that contextualize the readings for this week.

Hi

My name is federico angel. I was born in bogota colombia but moved to vancouver british columbia when I was 6 months old. I’ve spent my entire life here in vancouver and it is currently my second year here at UBC trying to major in economics. Im interested in latin american pop culture because i never really got to be a teenager in colombia and i thought what a better way to immerse myself in the pop culture of my country of origin than take a uni course dedicated to that. See you in class!