Freedom and equality have always been the product of local circumstances. Certainly it depended of the cultural context, even tough Latin America is considered as one region; rights would differ even in the same section, (this would definitely apply in the Mexican case, for being such a big country). The most impressive fact is that rights changed depending on the social class, the customs, languages spoken, and mostly importantly the gender. As a comparison, we could take the ancient Rome, in which only certain kind of people could be called citizens and had the right to vote wisely; in these two opposing civilizations there’s a common variable: women were not considered citizens; my wonder is, at what point in history did this happen? Weren’t women privileged and respected for giving birth? One way or another, man dominated the public sphere back in those times.

In addition to cultural struggles, this chapter reminded me to the “Casta Painings” because it mentions that in colonial Mexico there were at least eighteen caste categories, and the importance of this castes is that they basically defined your work, rights, clothes, etc (in a dramatic way, it could be said that the caste you belonged to, defined your destiny).

On the other hand slavery played an important role among the Latin American nation states. They were not considered as humans, but objects. They were sold, interchanged, replaced, among other horrible things. Despite the fact slavery was inhuman and evidently an unfair situation; it was different depending on the society. Taking for example Brazil, where slaves were easily replaced and their “owner” (whatever that word might been back then) wouldn’t really worry about their health. This passage of the Latin American history made me remember the feudal system and the feudal lords, who basically owned their workers; provided them food and a place to live, but under which conditions? They had to do all the hard work, same as Latin American slaves. So, could we say that Latin America has always been “learning” about their “colonizadores”? That instead of taking steps forwards, we’re only being repeating the same history. How can’t we realize we shouldn’t follow the same path without analyzing the negative outcomes?
But, at the end of the day it is important to recall and recognize the efforts that “slaves” made to get out of their situation and achieve “social equality”.