Hello, my name is Sophie Chevalier and I’m a first year here at UBC. I was born and lived in France, but moved to the United States many years ago for my dad’s job. Most of my family still lives in France, with the exception of the few who also live in the USA and in Germany.
My interest in Latin America came primarily from my fascination with Spanish, which came very naturally to me since I already speak French. I also lived in Nicaragua for five months and interned with a national organization which deepened my curiosity not only in Nicaragua, but in Latin America and its’ cultures, values, traditions, politics, languages and geography.
One of the videos I watched was called “Independence in Latin America” and I really liked their approach on the subject. They conducted their video like a talk show with one host and many interviewees. Something I didn’t like about this technique is that they filmed their video with the “selfie” camera and thus everything they had written on the boards and on the projector, was reversed in the video. Other than that, I think they brought up some compelling topics of conversation, such as Simon Bolivar’s hopeful idea of uniting Latin America and how it still isn’t united today. This is interesting because it can be argued that Latin America is in fact united in many ways for example with language. Although Portuguese, Dutch, French and many indigenous languages are spoken throughout the Caribbean, Central, and South America, most countries in Latin America have their official language as Spanish which is a very big common point to have.
I also watched “Signs of Crisis in the Gilded Age” which was very informative. It was interesting to hear them discuss the Mexican Revolution and the many issues with the railroads. I liked that the guys presenting introduced what they would be discussing at the start of their video. I also liked that the pictures they used switched accordingly with what they were talking about throughout the video.
I really appreciated watching these videos and getting a taste of what this semester will be like. I think it will also be very interesting to discuss the way Latin America is portrayed in the media and to challenge any previous assumptions we may have had of this region/idea and to further explore what and where Latin America is.
Sophie