Hello! My name is Elena and I’m from Richmond (which is just outside of Vancouver). I’m a second year student and am hoping to get into the International Relations program next year. I wanted to take this course because I am half Spanish and have always been personally interested in Latin America because of the shared language and some similarities in culture, unfortunately due to colonization. However, I really want to learn more about the incredible diversity (because as we discussed in class it goes beyond Spanish similarities) and histories that Latin America has.
The first video I watched was “The Meeting of Two Worlds II”. One point that interested me that the group made was about how some believe that it would have been better if Christopher Colombus never came to America. This raised some questions for me because if Christopher Colombus had never come to America, would there not have been someone else who eventually would? If yes, then what would be different because I think that could depend on the time period and what country came. Would the relationships be better with the indigenous peoples in that, they would have been better respected? Would there always be the problem of disease that the Europeans were carrying or would the affects be not as devastating? How would the culture of Latin America develop differently? Of course the way Colombus “discovered” America and the way that those who came after him behaved were terrible, but would the Americas have more or less the same fate no matter who came? The rest of the video was fairly straightforward although the writing was a little difficult to read. It outlined the beginning of colonization in the Americas and it mentioned how after Spain other countries like Portugal and Britain made their way across the Atlantic. The video did state that there were different reasons for Europeans to come varying from wanting riches to wanting to spread Christianity.
I also watched “Towards an Uncertain Future” which deals more with issues in Latin America in the mid 20th century. I remember learning about topics similar to these in a few courses last year, particularly the struggles that happened during the “Lost Decades” in the 80’s. The video brought up how little people during that time were able to trust their government and more importantly the type of governments that had formed. The students say that most people were left with 3 choices: “to exit”, “to voice their opinion”, or “to declare loyalty”. As the video addresses though, stating an opinion was sometimes not even an option if it contradicted the government because it led to death or punishment. In a way I found this video more interesting than the other because it dealt with more recent topics. In high school I did not learn much about Latin America besides Fidel Castro and the time before independence, only in university did some of my courses address the more recent events. I find this pretty unfortunate because as the video shows within the last fifty years there were/are so many complications and disputes in Latin America, some involving North American companies (Texaco) that have shaped the area.