Of all the readings this week, I felt most captivated by Hugo Chávez’s speech. It brought to light the fact that despite their efforts, many Latin American countries have yet to truly break free from the lasting effects of colonialism. Chávez references Simón Bolívar and his “Letter from Jamaica”, a document that was written over one hundred years prior to his speech. Yet still, the ultimate goals and ideals that Bolívar held for Latin America had not been reached. I admired the way that Chávez was not afraid to bluntly state that neoliberalism was what was hindering his people, and others around the world, from creating better lives for themselves. What I am curious about, is what were the accompanying factors, between Bolívar in 1815 and Chávez in 2004, inhibiting Latin America from moving forward?

The second thing I gained from the readings was a better understanding of how diverse Latin America is and how that affects each nation’s historical view and biases differently from the next. The heroes, for example, in each country. In Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, they idolize Simón Bolívar for his part in eliminating the Spanish hold within their countries. However, what surprised me was that in Bolivia, which is linked to Bolívar by its name, the citizens do not all praise him. Some people instead look to Tupac Katari, who died decades before the independence even occurred. The views within Latin America as a whole are numerous and even within individual countries the views are even further divided. It’s interesting to be able to learn more about what the specifics of each country’s background entails. Obviously things like class, religion, culture and heritage all contribute to a person’s unique opinion on history but these readings really emphasized this point for me.