reflections – LAST 303 blog

Unit 6 reflection: the pros and cons of tourism

My Unit 6 assignment about the Mapuches by Jeremiah, Claire, Ata, and Ashley.

As we have previously discussed in past units, tourism involving Indigenous people comes with both pros and cons. The positive effects of tourism involve participation in the world economy and additional sources of income from the sale of indigenous art. The downside of tourism is that not all indigenous people benefit from it. In Unit 2 we learnt about the exploitation of ayahuasca and how some Shipibo-Konibo people were no longer able to go to their shamans for healing as many shamans became too expensive for locals, and others moved to bigger cities. Discussions about tourism also made us question the meaning of “authenticity”, as we learnt that Shipibo-Konibo people often make kené that is designed for tourists and is different from the traditional kené that holds more meaning to them. The lecture about Mapuches highlighted a benefit of tourism I had not previously considered- for Mapuches tourism has helped them preserve and revitalize their culture. As a result of tourism, some Mapuche people have regained pride in their identity and there is more unity between community members. What I found most interesting is that tourism has enabled the transition of knowledge to younger generations which is so important for the preservation of a culture. Although there are many positives to tourism for Mapuches, there are also negatives, and some members of the community often consider tourism to be a new form of colonization.

Thank you Jeremiah, Claire, Ata, and Ashley for teaching me about the Mapuches, I really enjoyed reading the lecture!

The spirit of ayni

“Today for me, tomorrow for you” is how ayni is often described. This means that if you are struggling, your community will help you, and when you are in a better place you will help someone in need. One of the reading guide questions asked us to reflect on ayni and determine if we witnessed acts that contained the spirit of ayni. I thought this was a great question to reflect on, especially during these “unprecedented” Covid times.

During this pandemic there have been countless acts of selflessness- or ayni. I think in some ways, this pandemic has brought out the best in people- maybe because we all realize people all around the world are experiencing the same things we are, which makes it easier for us to sympathize with others. I have seen many people starting GoFundMe pages, asking for financial help to pay medical bills, rent they can no longer afford due to losing their jobs, and for many other reasons. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are raised this way because strangers help each other out in the spirit of ayni.

I have also witnessed people making “care packages” and sending them to friends and neighbours. Some people have reached out to their elderly neighbours to check in on them and getting their groceries so they can stay safe at home.

I also heard about the story of baby Boston, a baby with a rare genetic disease that needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. The matching process is very specific, and the family has been having trouble finding a suitable donor. After learning about Boston’s story, hundreds of people have signed up in the Canada’s national stem cell registry in hopes they’ll be a match for Boston. I decided to write about baby Boston’s story, and in the spirit of ayni to encourage any of you who are half Caucasian and half Filipino (Boston’s ethnicity) to sign up and register, and maybe you’ll get the chance to save his life.

I have included the story about baby Boston here, and the link to Canadian Blood Services here.

I am lucky to be a part of UBC’s Blood For Life team, so if any of you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

Atolada- salvadoran version of thanksgiving

Reading this week’s readings, I couldn’t help but relate it back to my childhood in El Salvador. There were so many things that I grew up watching that I did not realize were unique to my culture. For example, I remember it was really common to see fields burning after crops were harvested, and you’d sometimes find ashes on your windshield after leaving your car parked outside. I didn’t know that this tradition can be traced back to Maya people who used controlled fires to clear the area as a way to keep the soil nutrient rich and protect it against harmful microorganisms. It was only after reading that and I thought back to my childhood, that I realized the same isn’t done here in Canada. Another theme I was able to relate back to my culture was from Broccoli & Desire; it’s described that ‘wasting food is taboo, a cultural norm borne of necessity and instilled in children from an early age’. This is something that was really engrained in my sisters and I when we were growing up, and something we have noticed is not very common here where there is so much abundance of everything. I enjoyed reading about corn from a western perspective and it made me realize what a big part of people’s life this is in Central America. Since maize is a staple crop, at the end of the harvest, an “atolada” is hosted. Atoladas allow families to come together, thank God for their harvest and enjoy amazing food- similar to how Thanksgiving is celebrated here. Atolada comes from the word atol, which is a drink made out of elote (another word for maize). During an atolada, music is played, and dishes made from maize are served: corn on the cobb, atol, tamales, riguas, and everyone’s favourites: tortillas and pupusas. Riguas are a traditional Salvadoran corn cake. Nowadays atoladas are monstly only celebrated by people who own “fincas” which is like a ranch or by farmers who have milpas.

I have attached links to recipes for the atol de elote and riguas. Let me know if any of you try these recipes!

http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/creamy-sweet-corn-drink-atol-de-elote/

https://www.196flavors.com/el-salvador-riguas/

Garifunan Durudias and Salvadoran Pupusas.

This week, I found the video about Durudias really interesting. Being Salvadoran, I love tortillas and pupusas- they are my “comfort food”. I enjoyed watching the Durudia video because I was able to see the differences and similarities between Durudias and Salvadoran tortillas and pupusas. It’s interesting that although Honduras and El Salvador are so close to each other and we share similar history, our traditional foods are unique to our country. In El savador, tortillas are only made from corn flour and water. I was shocked when I saw Durudias contain coconut milk and sugar, but I definitely want to try them! In the video, Isha said they enjoy putting beans and cheese on their tortillas, which reminded me of our Salvadoran pupusas. Pupusas are tortillas stuffed with cheese, refried beans and/or pork. It was very interesting to see how the journey of Garifunia people can be observed in their food. I enjoyed watching Isha’s family come together to eat Durudias in the video which reminded me of my family. Growing up, there were always fresh tortillas in our house, and they would be served as a side dish along with most meals. On weekends, my family would often go to a pupuseria- where they make pupusas. Sometimes my grandma, cousins and aunt would also come to the pupuseria to eat with us. After moving to Canada, pupusas were one of the first things we started to miss from El Salvador (besides the tropical weather). We have been fortunate enough to be able to go back to El Salvador every year for Christmas, and when we are there, my sister and I eat pupusas everyday! Below is a photo of some pupusas 🙂

Mestisaje and Decolonization- conflicting terms?

Out of all the keywords, I found Ata, Ashley, Jeremiah and Claire’s “Mestisaje” the most relatable to me. When I saw this was going to be one of the keywords, I was excited to see what people defined it as. I grew up in Central America, and ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was mestiza. To me, being mestiza simply means I am half European, half Indigenous. Since the great majority of people around me were mestizo, mestisaje was normal, and like described in the definition, it was a unifying term- it was what we all shared in common. The history surrounding colonization by the Spanish and mestisaje was taught to all of us in school. Although I can’t trace my ancestry all the way back to when the Spanish colonized Central America, I know my Indigenous ancestors most likely suffered at the hands of the Spanish. The same can be said about the other 7 million people in my country and the rest of Central America. Is that sad? Of course. However, with time we have healed. We do not dwell in the past.

Surprisingly, I had never heard of the idea of decolonization before enrolling in this course. This has been a prominent theme in our class readings and discussions. Decolonization is not something that is the vocabulary of most Central Americans. How can decolonization take place if half my ancestry is European and the other half Indigenous? I am also proud of both.

Is a Taco Bell taco eaten in Toronto still a taco?

This unit, I found a question from the reading guide very interesting: “What happens to an individual element of complex foodways when it is divorced from the surrounding culture, society, practices, etc.? For instance, is a Taco Bell taco eaten in Toronto still a taco? Still part of a foodways?”

When a Canadian or American person eats a taco from Taco Bell, it will not mean the same that it would for an Indigenous person from Mexico as this has not been part of their foodways for hundreds of years. I don’t think that this is a bad thing. This is a result of globalization, which has brought attention to different food items we wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to. Continuing with the taco example, it is a well-known fact that tacos are a Mexican specialty, and that tacos from Taco Bell are nowhere near as good as the ones you can eat if you travel to Mexico. Big chains such as Taco Bell have “americanized” tacos but again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. They have modified a food item into something targeted towards their American consumers. Taco Bell isn’t claiming they sell the best, most “aunthentic” tacos.

I believe that knowing the origin of a food item does not divorce it from its culture. The fact that tacos are inherently Mexican will remain unchanged.

I find the concept of foodways hard to apply to non-Indigenous people. As discussed in Belasco’s text from last week, as consumers we have removed ourselves from the food-making process, which means that the food we consume is not part of our foodways, as it is not involved in our beliefs and behaviors like it can be for Indigenous People.

So, a taco eaten in Toronto is not part of a foodways. Is that bad? I don’t believe so.

What is the role of an audience?

The keyword I picked for my blog is ‘audience’. I found the definition of the Keyword Audience interesting and appreciated that how the definition was tied to the themes we have explored during class discussions.

Reading this definition, I picked up on two main points. One being that depending on the situation an audience can be a bad thing “or a force to be celebrated”, the second point explores the role of an audience. Both of these points are very powerful, and before reading this definition I would not have associated them with ‘audience’. So, what is the role of an audience? Who is the audience? It is easy to distinguish the speaker(s) from the audience in events such as concerts, where the speaker is the performer and the audience are the people that have bought tickets to watch the performance. Extrapolating this to other situations gets trickier. For example, in the academia, where thousands of scholars contribute to the conversation by writing about their findings. Scholars then read the work of others, add on to it or ask questions and then publish their own work. So it seems, asking questions or starting conversations can one make go from being a member of the audience to a speaker.

Is this always true?

One particular sentence from the definition made me pause; “settlers wonder what decolonization will look like for themselves, effectively rejecting their role as audience and speaking over Indigenous peoples”

Why does wondering what decolonization will look mean rejecting the role of audience? Why is this considered speaking over Indigenous peoples? If non-Indigenous people are turning to Indigenous people regarding an Indigenous topic, it means non-Indigenous people know they don’t have the answer. Are members of the audience always meant to stay as part of the audience and never to become speakers?

Decolonization: How Far Will We Actually Get?

I found “Introduction” by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang to be the most thought- provoking reading from this unit.

The concept of decolonization is new to me, but from our in-class discussion it seemed to me that this should be a team effort. That is, both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples need to work on it together. However, I found Yang and Tuck’s text confusing. Some of the points made seemed to contradict each other. Firstly, the authors set the tone by explaining how decolonization efforts have been one-sided, with only indigenous scholars being proactive while “white settler scholars can only imagine decolonization as philosophical and theoretical” (Tuck 10). By saying this they seem to be encouraging white settlers to start pulling their weight and get to work. A couple pages after this they go on to say that after white settler scholars read indigenous works and start asking questions, “they drain the energy and imagination of indigenous scholarship- they pester, they think are unique, and they are boring” (Tuck 16)

How encouraging is that?

One of the main take-aways I got from reading Yang and Tuck’s intro was the idea that indigenous and non-indigenous peoples think very differently, and that this is the reason we haven’t successfully tackled decolonization: “Again, something being purportedly too theoretical is often the reason that Indigenous work is discarded or disregarded, whereas that ‘too theoretical’ idea may be entirely practical, life- sustaining, and life-promoting for an Indigenous reader” (Tuck 15). This text portrayed one way of thinking as being superior to the other. Who is to say which is better? Furthermore, Tuck adds that “being an Indigenous scholar in the settler academy is like listening to someone go on and on about the dilemmas of cab rides while knowing that the subway system is just beneath the surface.” Seeing things this way will not get us very far.