The Making of Latin America: Contemporary Thoughts

AJ, I think this is a very interesting topic to write your blog about. I think although we may see more of Latin American corruption or even the corruption of other countries throughout our education, I don't think corruption is "more" prevalent in other places than it is in the United States. Like Professor Serrata said in class - corruption is just legal in the United States while it isn't in other places. The United States has a system put in place where the corruption is more well hidden and tolerated by the masses. A lot of corruption was still pretty well hidden until people started to care to call corrupt people of power out for it. I believe that's why we have so many scandals or “big stories” that come out in the news. The corruption is well hidden until it is exposed. The United States tries to put on such a heroic image of itself and an image of superiority that of course they want to hide any corruption that they have. They frown upon countries who a...

          Since we have been talking about creolization in class a lot recently, we have generally been talking about it in reference to music and the mixing of African and European music to create something new. This term can also apply to different aspects of culture beyond solely music, including food and religion, and also can include indigenous culture. Although it is a term typically used to describe culture in the Caribbean and Latin America, we can also see some creolization in the United States. My question is - why don't we see it more?            In the United States, the only traces of creolization that are really prominent are Louisiana Creole cuisine, and jazz music. Besides those, there are not any more examples of creolization that I can think of in the United States. This blog is one where I pose a lot of questions, because I'm really curious to hear other people's input on the topic. Do you think there are other e...

Holly, I think that it's really cool that you made a connection between the Incan coca bags from last semester and the murals we have been looking at this semester. I also really like that you expanded your consideration of art beyond just visual art, and considered art to also be literature. You could even probably expand it further to music, dance, singing, and acting as well. It really is interesting how art of all forms is able to communicate so many different things to so many different people. No matter a person's background, skin color, upbringing, culture; everybody can find some sort of meaning in art. That's something that I also find beautiful about art, that it is really open up interpretation. Authors, artists, poets, etc. usually have an intended message that they are trying to portray, but in reality people are allowed to take from it what they want. It is also interesting that even art, particularly visual art, goes along with the whole concept of the signif...

          During Professor Stark's lecture on Monday, there was something that really caught my attention, and it was the concept of Liberation Theology. Professor Stark defined it as "using religion to empower people to change the world" (my notes), which I think is an interesting concept. I further researched it, and the definition further expanded. Liberation Theology calls for the "true" followers of Jesus to work towards a just and fair society by bringing about social and political change. It is actually a combination of Christian theology and Marxist beliefs that strives to relieve political and social oppression from the oppressed of society.           The reason that this caught my attention so much was that, to me, it finally seemed like the Catholic Church was acting in how I view it should. Throughout history the Catholic Church has been a business, seemingly only interested in their own gain. They even functioned as the ban...