Three things I learned

  1. I learned that if you study a category like revolutions, wars, or causes for a political change involves patterns. An analysis can be made of similar events to see the similarities and differences of cause and effect.
  2. I learned that the cause of a change usually is dependent on an outside force as well as internal.
  3. I learned a lot more about Latin American history.

Peer Review Reflections

There was only one peer review that I could find in response to my proposed edits. It basically agreed with my proposed edits, saying that I should do everything I listed. The main feedback I received was thought the wikipedia peer review template, so the feedback was in yes and no answers. The feedback I received agreed to organize my page and add more about her work and early life. I will continue with my plan for improving my article.

Sara Gómez

This article is on Sara Gómez a Cuban film maker. She is an important figure to look at because she was the first Cuban director. This is another example to the rich history of Latin America. The Arts culture in Latin America is an important element to its history it highlights primary sources that give us point of view, biases and many more personal and communal experiences. As for the article itself I didn’t see many biases in this wikipedia entry. There isn’t a lot of information given. I think adding more information about who she was how she used her art/ media outlet as well as adding more information about all of her films would greatly improve this article. I don’t think there are enough variety of sources, so adding new references would increase the article to meet Wikipedia’s standards.

LA in the News: Lima’s ‘Wall of Shame’ and the Art of Building Barriers

This article focused on the border wall in Lima, Peru. The concrete wall divides the cities rich and poor. The building of the wall began in 1985 carving through the rugged terrain. This wall was built to segregate the plywood and metal sheet shacks from the Casuarinas. The Casuarinas were the luxury mansions the cities wealthy. This wall has expanded to keep separating the wealthy neighborhoods from “the other”  This article addresses the reasons that this wall was put up as well as personal stories that tell the effect the wall has.

This wall was put in place so that the rich didn’t have to see or experience the life of the slums. The economic disparity is very visible in Lima and all of Peru. This creates “…this idea of security behind the wall that creates homogeneous social groups,”. Further dividing the economic worlds and classes in Peru. about 6.9 million Peruvians live below Peru’s poverty line, that means they earn less than 338 soles ($102) per month. The wall was mainly in response to migration from rural areas in Peru in the 80’s. Because of this migration it caused these pop up houses that weren’t sturdy but they were safe. The wealthy residents of Casuarinas and other areas expanded the wall (this was approved by local government) for safety and to stop the crime spilling into their areas.

This article explained the effect that it had on the people who worked in these wealthy neighborhoods but lived in the slums. one woman Lily Mamani Reyes, a house cleaner has to wake up at 5a.m to begin a two-and-a-half-hour walk to get to work. She puts extra time into this job as a result of the extended commute and yet she says that-her pay has decreased.

Patricia Novoa has lived in the Casuarinas for half her life and said the wall was a security. She explains that the people living theres are criminals and thieves because they have no other choice. That the environment has no education and no way “to live”. This wall has very negative effects on one side and barely registers to the other.

I thought it was interesting that this article mentioned other countries multiple times. It mentioned the US and the current administration. This source is from the Atlantic an American magazine. This was clearly written from an outside perspective. It was very analytical and expressed the position of Peru instead of ways that this issue could be fixed or if theres any though to fixing this. This wall has been up for more than three there should be some sort of action around it. And if there isn’t then why is this being addressed now? and not 30 years ago? We can see a significant segregation of wealth and a visible separation of class in Peru.  Connecting this to the topics we have learned in class about Defronzos formula to a revolution this is a clear sign of class/ elite divisions. This also could be connected to mass frustration. Wether Peru will experience a revolution or reform is still unlikely but it is clear that this problem of economic inequality needs to be addressed. Putting a wall between one and their problem will not solve it.

Article: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/peru-lima-wall/597085/

Propaganda in Cuba Wikipedia Article

Everything in the article was relevant, there was some background about the Cuban revolution. After that it expanded on the element of propaganda that Castro used in and after the Cuban Revolution. There could have been more examples of propaganda across different mediums. As well as Propaganda in Cuba that was not directly from Castro even though he might have been the biggest supplier.

The article only referred to propaganda produced by Castro, this could have been the case but there is no mention of any produced by Batista or even outside counties about the revolution at this time. The article itself was fairly neutral in explaining only one small piece of propaganda around the cuban revolution.

There are 18 references listed most of them from the same sources. All of the sources are from Castros propaganda, there is no references to propaganda from different people or parties to provide a more dimensional view of propaganda in Cuba. There is only one link listed in references and it dose not work.

The talk page of this article was about the change in title of this page. It was originally Cuban Revolutionary Propaganda and now it is Propaganda in Cuba. This article was also not rated and did not appear to be part of any WikiProject.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Cuba

Class Notes 9/11/19

On Wednesday, Sep 11th, We started out class with more tips and tricks on our primary source essay that is due on Friday Sep13th.

Next, we heard from Elliot presenting his LA in the News piece. The headline chosen was Mothers Force to Sleep in the Hallways of the South Hospital due to a Lack of SpaceThis story was set in Honduras and was expressing the overcrowding in the maternity ward in a third world context. Elliot expressed the hospitals lack of concern given for these new mothers who’s children had fevers. This article told two different stories of women sleeping on the floor or on benches after giving birth to be with their sick baby. Elliot then tells a brief antidote about his personal time in Honduras and the conditions there. 

Professor Holt briefly defined Oral Tradition in context of Corridos in Mexico before we split into Then we split into discussion groups. Oral Tradition is a way of passing information, tradition spread by word of mouth, this could be stories, songs, folklore etc. In the context of class we were talking about Corridos; A popular narrative song and poetry that forms a ballad. Topics vary from oppression, history, daily life for peasants, gossip and other social relevant topics   We split into groups to talk about the Corrido’s we read about and how to analyze them. One of the discussion questions focused on was: What are Corridos and how can we use them as a primary source? We spent about ten minutes at the end of class to listen to Tiempos Amargos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2tlHtx0Zgc), a Corrido we read about.

In our large class discussion one interesting question to come up was wether Corridos were just a northern tradition or if it was also southern. From what I could find there are some about Zapata but not much about specific southern culture. This doesn’t necessarily mean they did not exist in southern Mexico but they are harder to find today. Another topic we talked about was the fact that this was a masculine genera. We also noted the way Corridos have changed over time and now they are either folkish or they are about the drug environment. There is a new subcategory of corridos called Narcocoridos that are about the current drug situation in Mexico.   If you want some more Corridos you can listen to click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XG8NMCOPM

Here are some more Corridos lyrics that I found in english about notable events of the revolution:

http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/Mexicoreader/Chapter5/rev%20corridos.pdf

Questions:

What was the role of gender in this Corridos tradition? why is it considered masculine?

What is the benefit of looking at Corridos as a primary source? How can we use it to relate to other source we have looked at?

During the time of the revolution would one consider Corridos more as propaganda or as storytelling? or dose is it dependent on the context and not the time period?