Hi all, my name is Silas Latchem and I am a second year Biology major. I’m originally from Montreal Quebec, where I graduated from the CEGEP system after two years in College. My spoken french isn’t great, despite studying it for 14 years, but if you ever want to chitchat (in either English or French) just say hi. I chose this course because I have always been very interested in Latin America, especially in its contemporary history. I visited Guatemala for 3 weeks in 2015 and fell in love with the people and its culture. I am hoping to go back sooner than later. I greatly enjoyed “Modernity in Latin America” by Thamer Farjo, Nicole Gross, Nicola Cox, Austin Chang and Allysia Lam. I was amazed to find out just how rapidly Brazil modernized in the late 1800s, and surprised to find out that Slave Labour was so important to the their boom. The video makes in clear that while many of the countries that constitue Latin America modernized very quickly, it was at grave cost to the vast majority of people who lived there. Tactics such as slave labour may be effective, but far from pleasant, or indeed moral. Another video I enjoyed was “The War on Drugs” by Diane Keyes and Michelle Nziok. I was somewhat shocked to find out how prevalent drug use was in places like Brazil- one million users of any drug is a lot, let alone a drug like cocaine. I thought the group raised an interesting topic when the pointed out that the widespread drug abuse of the lower classes of society helped keep a power divide between the wealthy and the poor. It was somewhat reminiscent of issues encountered during the modernization of Latin America, wherein the rich got far richer while the poor became poorer. I am very much looking forward to learning more about the region/idea/culture that is Latin America in the coming weeks.