Towards an Uncertain Future

The future of anything is uncertain, and the same goes for Latin America.

Latin America’s future seems to be promising but I don’t think that unity in the whole of the continent is something that we can hope for anytime soon. To be honest, this is something new that I learned through this course.

Initially, I thought that Latin America was this whole Hispanic unit of America- and everyone was the same and united. This was because I had never studied about this place and its history. Latin America is multi-cultured and there are so many things that set each part of Latin America unique than the others. Its beauty is poetic.

Initially, when I was asked, ‘Where is Latin America?’, I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t know where Latin America is located, because Latin America is an abstract idea that cannot have exact boundaries.

The three words that I now associate with Latin America are: Multicultural, soul, and music.

Also, I really want to go to Costa Rica.

Power to the people

This week I was introduced to the charismatic Maria Eva Duarte de Perón.  I was also introduced to the concept of ‘Populism’. Initially, it was very striking to me that some of the leaders did not want to be termed as a populist and the word, ‘populism’ had a negative connotation that forgone reason no one wanted to be associated to. Why did it have a negative connotation and who viewed populism as negative? Why was it a bad thing to represent and stand up for the people?

It is evident that the elites saw the populists as negative figures because they gave power to the people and the more power that the people got, the lesser powerful the elites became. Too much power to the people meant that they could manipulate the elites. Another reason why populism may be seen from a negative standpoint could be because some of the promises they made seemed to be too far-fetched, and they promised everything to everyone.

Populism had no set ideological valence and is hard to pin down, but it has many links to history, sociology, technology, and economics.

History: The concept of ‘Caudillismo’ existed in Latin America. The caudillos were individuals who had complete power over groups of people. In contrast, populist leaders give power to the people (in some ways at least).

Sociology: Populism was associated with building cities and urbanization, and the experience of being a part of the crowd. There was also a sort of uncertainty in post-colonial Latin America and populism simplifies the questions and gives answers to the people.

Technology: With the advent of technology, populist leaders had a better medium to communicate and influence the masses, instead of just groups of people. In some way, this brought unity to the people.

Economics: Populism believed in creating an economic wall around the country and raising tariffs for import- ISI (Import substitution Industrialisation).

My question is, did all the populist leaders have similar beliefs?

Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics

The ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen’ was made in 1789 and it stated that ‘Men are all born and remain free and equal in rights.’ This was the first time that the citizens were made the possessor of the rights, and was just the starting point of extending these rights to all the people.

The question is, who is counted as a ‘citizen’ and what defines a citizen of the Latin American Society? What about the women and the slaves? And what about the different classes of the Latin American Society? Could emancipated slaves ask for a right to be paid back for their slavery?

Earlier when I learned about the Casta paintings, every class had a position in society. With these new rights coming in, could a person move up a class, or would the class system even exist anymore?

Corruption and violence prevented liberal ideas to truly flourish in Latin America. Another reason why these ideas did not thrive in the early years was probably because of the caudillos. Caudillos promised concrete benefits as compared to abstract rights promised by the state- which means that the people were more likely to follow them.

Once the slaves were finally emancipated in 1888 in Brazil, racism still existed in its most extreme form. The trauma of slavery does take a long time to go away. Even today, the oppression of the people of colour is very real, and it can be seen because hate crimes still do exist. Even though we like to think that the world has progressed a lot and we’ve come a long way from when slavery was a thing- it is quite striking to note that it really isn’t something that happened a long time ago, and it still affects people around the world. It can even be seen through the misrepresentation of people in Hollywood and racist films like, ‘This is England.’

Casta paintings and Identity

Casta paintings consist of 12-16 images on a canvas each having a man, woman, and a child. The first few canvases illustrate Spaniard and Indian mixes and the next few canvases show Spaniard and African mixes. Africans and Indians were regarded as the least elite having the lowest position in the society and therefore occupied the lower canvases. There is also an emphasis on clothing worn by the people in the paintings. Privileged people (Spaniards) are seen wearing lavish silk or cotton and holding cigars and Africans are seen as heathens.

These paintings were probably painted it to show the world what was going on at that time and these paintings evoke controversial perspectives about race and hierarchy and social beliefs about the place of an individual in a society. Postcolonial America had a large number of immigrants and these immigrants were diversified in culture and race. Casta paintings seem to accentuate this diversified population and form a ‘demographic pyramid’ which emphasizes the consequences of inter-ethnic breeding. 

There are labels on the paintings- Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo, Black, Mullato, Lobo, Chino, and Albino- to identify the people of mixed races. It is interesting to notice that one of their subtitles or ‘classifications’ is “Note entiendo”, which in Spanish means “I don’t understand you”. Who was in charge of labelling these people? Was it the Spaniards? Did all the hierarchies accept these paintings? Do they make certain unions less desirable by society? 

Labels have been a part of Latin America. Apart from cultural labels, people also had gender labels, and Catalina de Erauso is a good example of a person trying to escape all these labels and follows her desire to be her true self.

Women in Pre- and Post- Colonial Latin America (Short Research Assignment)

The source I used for my research was the book, ‘The Women of Colonial Latin America’ by Susan Migden Socolow. My research highlights the position of women in the old world, the pre-Columbian new world and the post-colonial new world. The position of men and women in every society is a social construct and is not a natural state, because every social group has a set of norms that defines the rules of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’, and by adhering to those rules, the individual becomes a legitimate ‘man’ or ‘woman’. Gender, race, and class functioned together. A women’s power depended on the position she had in the household. The wife of the head of the house had more power than an orphaned niece or a spinster aunt who lived under the same roof. Moreover, it was affected by where they lived: cities or rural zones, and the economy of the region, for example, elite women in 17th century Mexico lived lives of more opulence than elite women in poorer regions like Santo Domingo. Spanish thinkers like Juan de la Cerda influenced how women were viewed: less intelligent/rational than men. Because they were ‘foolish’, they were expected to keep silent, and because they didn’t have the mental capacity, it wasn’t necessary to treat them how to write. Moreover, they couldn’t resist temptations and were easily susceptible to evil. Pop culture then stressed on how women were gossipy, emotional, weak. Only by keeping them in their homes, or under male guidance could women be protected from the evil. When Columbus set out to discover the new world, Isabel I, who was a queen reigned. In the Iberian peninsula, the position of women was quite different from that of the rest of Europe, because it was once ruled by the Muslims (Moors). The role of women was thus affected by Islam and Roman Catholicism. The Virgin Mary was idealized because she was distanced from any sexual contact or experience. The women were divided into the virtuous and the shamed and the dividing line was sexuality, and how they dressed, their public behaviour, and meekness. Later on purity of blood became a concept that determined individual’s social standing. In Europe, purity equaled no Moorish or Jewish ancestors and female virtue was most important so that no impure blood enters the family’s veins. Although the women of Castile had no equal rights to men, they were still better off than the women in other places. For example, Inheritance laws were gender blind. They also enjoyed the rights such as patria potesdad: legal control over the children.

In Spain and Spanish America, children took the last name of both the mother and the father. Widows could remarry. In the Americas, before Columbus arrived, there is not much information about the non-elite women, however, Excavations in the Cochabamba region (Cochabamba is a city in Bolivia) show that men were buried with much richer and exotic goods than women, which reflects their social status. The Coya (who was the principal wife of the Inca ruler) often advised her husband and sons which suggests indirect power. Among the Mayas, women could not have land. Aztec girls studied in all-girl schools and were taught the arts that would help them in their marriage later on. Work was pretty gendered (Sexual division of labour), and occupations available to women were midwifery and weaving. Older women were seen as witches (as narrated by the Spaniards). After Columbus arrived, women were raped and abused. Chiefs offered their daughters to Spanish conquistadors in order to strengthen their family’s power. During the conquest, women were taken captive and distributed among the men. Some of them violated these women, and others formed long-lasting relationships with them. Indian wives were the most privileged of all the conquered people and were treated as Spanish women. However, Spanish men preferred to marry Spanish women who were immigrating in large numbers after 1560. After the end of the conquest, Indian women served as Concubines to the Spaniards.

 

Bibliography

Socolow, Susan Migden. The women of colonial Latin America. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015

1492: The year Native Americans discovered Columbus lost at sea

The (only) benefit of submitting posts late is that after a point you give up, take it slow and research at your own pace. After a week more of contemplating about whether or not Columbus was actually as heroic as people claim(ed) him to be, it dawned on me that Columbus discovered America in the same way the meteors discovered the dinosaurs- by completely destroying their whole entire existence.

In one of the blogs that I read, a question asked was, ‘Can we blame Columbus for merely discovering the continent?’. The problem here is that his discovery caused a domino effect on what was going to happen to that continent: the destruction of the people who lived there.

Columbus did return to the new world later on, as hungry as a starving wolf, and upon his arrival, he demanded that the Lucayans gave him their gold, food, and women, and when they refused, he went to war with them. He sold people as slaves, murdered people, and fed their bodies to dogs, so you tell me, is that ‘heroic’?

Caudillos and nation building

In his book, ‘Coercion, Capital, and European States,’ Charles Tilly states that war creates states, which fight other wars to expand the power of the states by acquiring land.  This week, I learned that Caudillos were political leaders in Postcolonial Latin America, who offered hope for stability to the citizens and rules different parts of the country.  They had strong character and willpower. Caudillos were strong military men who used their armies to control the state, just like it happened in Nation states in Europe.

However, using the military to control the state shows the weakness of the country. Which was in fact true. Throughout its colonialism, the Latin Americans had some sort of colossal power governing over them, for example, the Spanish King. Postcolonial Latin America was ruled by men whose influence was merely local. Thus there was no unity among in the country, which resulted in its downfall.

Although there was a direct rule between the caudillos and the people, there was no set of rules and no particular system of governance. It is indeed true that smaller institutions (states) work better than large ones because there is less chaos and more interaction between the leaders and the people. However, this system did not work well for Latin America because there was no coordination between the different leaders.

 

 

 

Introduction

Hi, I am Aaliya, and I am a first year Arts student. Born and raised in Mumbai, I am an Indian with extremely global interests. Due to my mother’s residence in Africa for a period, and my father’s constant trips to the middle east, I grew up exposed to multiple languages and cultures. As a child, I was taught to read Arabic and was encouraged to try my mother’s African cooked food, yet having access to the local ‘Bhelpuri’ of Mumbai. At an early age, I was immersed in a curriculum that introduced me to languages close to extinction, like Marathi, Memoni and Persian and at home, my linguaphile mother encouraged me to learn global languages like French. This insatiable thirst to learn languages and immerse in cultures made me burn with curiosity about the world. Since I had not studied Latin American history before, I was immediately drawn to this subject.

Week 2: Meeting of the two worlds

In 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, it marked a turning point in the history of the world. The discovery of the ‘new world’ led to a  whole array of opportunities for the ‘old world.’ However, it also meant the end of the original culture of the natives that belonged there.

What intrigued me was that in his journal, Christopher Columbus is not only hypocritical about his motives for coming to the American land, but he also infantilizes the people who initially lived there and spoke about making them his servants. He initially says that his motive was to spread Christianity,  but his reasons are clearly business minded. Millions fell dead in this process, and millions were enslaved.

Furthermore, it was interesting how the discovery of the new world changed the course of history. Different explorers from different parts of the world wanted a piece of this new Sierra. The Europeans first saw a tomato in the 16th century, and the Native Americans first saw a horse because Columbus discovered this new land.  However, what came along with this exchange were diseases such as Smallpox and Chickenpox, which killed many natives, and soon almost wiped out an entire culture, as the native population decreased significantly. Was Columbus a fearless explorer who brought two worlds together or was he a ruthless exploiter who brought colonialism and slavery?