Coming into this class, I was a bit apprehensive because I had no prior knowledge about Latin America. However, I can now say I’ve learned a lot and I hope to take more courses like this at UBC. Gaining insight on another area’s history and culture takes you out of your bubble. I remember during the first class, the three words I used to describe South America had to do with beaches and tourism. The answer I have at the end of the semester is drastically different. I would say diversity, perseverance and darkness With so much rich history belonging to each country, every week was significant in its own way.My goal was to learn something new. I’ve gone beyond that. There is a new level understanding, eagerness to learn and exposure to another side of the world. I hope to keep up with current issue and complete independent research on topics I find interesting.This week’s lecture was titled “Towards an Uncertain Future” could not be a more accurate way to describe the state of Latin America as of right now. Looking back at prior chapters of this course, we saw the negative effects of colonialism, outside intervention, modernity, independence and more. Yet, the people of Latin America are able to endure hardships and obstacles in their way. No one can guess what the future holds especially considering all that is going on in the world. To end off with, I’ve really enjoyed this course and will really miss everything about it.
Discussion Questions:
Can you make any inferences about the future of Latin America?
Out of each chapter of the syllabus, what was the most interesting week for you?
Hi Simran! I agree that the title for this week, “Towards an Uncertain Future” could not be more accurate. Especially with the added uncertainty caused by COVID-19, who knows what will happen. I think it’s impossible to predict what will happen. Although I really enjoyed every week of this course and learned a lot, I really liked week 12 and 13. I know I just said it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the future, but that doesn’t mean that there is no point even thinking about it, because there is.
Hi!
I think it’s close to impossible to make an inference about the future of Latin America, giving the fact that not even Creel man could guess that the Mexican revolution was going to happen a few years after his interview with the president. Although it is possible to conjure up a couple of possible scenarios, it probably won’t be very accurate especially with the pandemic going on. If I had to choose my favorite chapter/week, it would have to be Week 10, Power to the People. I thought it was really interesting how the power dynamics was starting to change in Latin America.
Hello,
To answer the second question, I’m split between the earlier chapters (Ex. meeting of two worlds + colonialism) and Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire. I really liked these because probably because they provided such fascinating historical documents – casta paintings, Columbus’ journal, Poma, American propaganda films, Catalina’s testimony, etc. These aren’t dry like political manifestos, and also the conversations sparked by them, such as how to think of Colombus, were really insightful. And also I think I learned the most in this course from the earlier weeks, as I had almost no knowledge of Latin America prior to the Cold War.
Hi Simran! I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed that course! I also enjoyed and learned so much, it was really impressive how assumptions we all had as a class of Latin America changed by the end. As for the future of Latin America, the title of this week’s content is completely accurate, uncertainty.
Anyways, I learned a lot throughout the entirety of the course, however I would have to say that after week 10 – Power to the People and onwards were my preferred topics.