How is this aspect of Latin American history represented?

The article, Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional, explains what the organization’s main goal is to empower Chicanas (mainly) politically and economically. The article then explains the history of how the organization began, mentioned what came out of their first conference, and what legal cases they were involved in. The article then talks about the organization’s current status, in which conferences are now geared more towards empowering women through education. 

Do you see any biases? 

The only bias I noted was in the section History. In discussing how the organization came to be, it talked about how Mexican-American women felt like the National Chicano Issues Conference focused on issues pertaining to men more than the issues of women. However, without proper citations, I wonder where that information came from. Aside from that, the article did well being unbiased about the  Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional. 

What kinds of sources are used? 

Barely any sources are used. I clicked on two sources provided under the external links header, and one of the sources sends me to a blank page with no information present. The other link sends me to another Wikipedia page. The sources are not up to standards for this article. 

How might you improve the article to meet Wikipedia’s standards and show your skills in historical research and analysis? 

The main problem I will tackle that this article has is the sources provided. Because of the lack of sources, I have to do more intensive research on the Comisión Femenil Mexican Nacional to confirm what is presented in the Wikipedia article.

How is this aspect of Latin American history represented? 

The article represents arpilleras as a form of art used by women during the Chilean Revolution to earn income and promote political messages against the Chilean government. The article details some historical background on the revolution and how its impact on women led to the creation of arpillera workshops. The article also discusses how arpilleras are made and briefly mentions the government’s response to the creation of arpilleras and arpillera workshops. Additionally, the article briefly mentions the legacy arpilleras have created.

Do you see any biases? 

There are no biases in the article and all the information is presented neutrally and given equal importance. When opinions and analyses from historians are mentioned, the article maintains a neutral tone by addressing what statements are simply beliefs held by historians.

What kinds of sources are used? 

The article uses a BBC news article, an article from Slate, a book on arpilleras, and some academic articles on arpilleras as sources. However, some of the articles are inaccessible and there are only 12 sources used.

How might you improve the article to meet Wikipedia’s standards and show your skills of historical research and analysis? 

I would improve the article by adding citations to statements where citations are missing. Also, I would provide more information on notable arpilleristas and on the complex system of arpillera workshops. Additionally, I would like to provide more information on the government’s response to the creation of arpillera workshops. In addition, I would like to provide further information on the legacy of arpilleras as well.

My chosen Wikipedia Entry is Mariela Castro, the daughter of revolutionary leaders Vilma Espín and Raúl Castro, and the niece of Fidel Castro. She is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education and is an activist for LGBT rights in Cuba.

This aspect of Latin American history is not represented in the best way just because of the lack of information in the article. Although the article does list notable parts of her career, especially with her work with the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, but it does not list the origins of her career or give names of any of the works she has written. There are no apparent biases, especially because the article is extremely short.

There are only five sources in my article, and most of them are cited irregularly. One of the sources does not provide a link to the material and is very vague in terms of phrasing (“Official programme of the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights”), and one of the sources is a LinkedIn profile, which is arguably not the best type of source for a Wikipedia article that should be dependent on scholarly sources.

I would begin to improve this article to meet Wikipedia’s standards by updating the Reference list with more scholarly sources, and would likely eliminate the LinkedIn Source as it does not meet the above portion of Wikipedia’s standards. If I did not eliminate any of the present sources, I would likely still add more sources in general as the list of sources is currently way too short and limited in both quantity and quality. 

I felt that every heading in the entry had a justifiable reason to be included.

Again, there was nothing that I found to be distracting or not immediately relevant.

There are times when the article spends its few words of a paragraph to mention personal opinions of the leaders (and therefore governments) during the Ten Years of Spring (e.g. Jorge Ubico saying that the indigenous population resembled donkeys). I can imagine some would say that this is not relevant to factual historical analysis but I feel that it holistically represents what would influence the contemporary administrations.

The viewpoints of women of the revolution felt especially lacking, considering there’s a list of three imprisoned leaders of a communist movement under Ubico where Graciela García, one of the only women mentioned by name in the article, doesn’t have her own page.

Yes; there are links to important players like United Fruit Company and the USA, and under the reference heading it seems almost as though they are the subject of the most articles.

The references listed seem to be from who I could incorrectly be assuming are not Spanish speakers, so that could skew primary source analyses from having to rely on translations.

The oldest article listed in as a reference is dated 1982, which while not out of modernity, is still before the fall of the USSR and being published in Texas could potentially have biased information regarding communist threads in the revolution.

This article has been deemed a “good” publication, and has a peer revision that is archived.

This is a part of the WikiProjects for Guatemala, the Cold War, and Military history.

The brief mentions of Guatemala we’ve had in class have regarded US-backed coups and the United Fruit Company, so it does make sense that great bulks of this article on the revolution regard both of these subjects.

Although this article is neutral, it is not informative about who Tupac Amaru is. If anything the article covers the history of past Incas more than the history of Tupac Amaru. Anytime Tupac Amaru is referred to, it is only a sentence or two. Instead of him being the focal point, he was a detail. Who or what Amaru stood for was incredibly underrepresented in the article. The only real section that covered Amaru was his execution. The article certainly goes into more depth about his execution rather than his life. Out of 5 links, only 1 link works. The one link that did work did support to explain further who Tupac Amaru was. Every fact is referenced with an appropriate reference. Although, the references themselves are not the most reliable. The information in the article is not out of date but it is limited. What is missing is what Tupac Amaru stood for. In the Talk page there is a discussion about the spelling of Tupac, whether it is Tupac or Tupac. There is also a point raised that the article has the incorrect death. The Talk page also features his last words and explains them in detail. The article is rated start class, which isn’t considered as reliable. It is definitely an article that could use a lot of work. Although it is part of the WikiProjects, it barely touches on the impact Tupac Amaru had on the world. In class we spent a good amount of time discussing how what he stood for continued to be of relevance in today’s time. Although not as important as going into depth about what Tupac Amaru stood for, I do think it is important to add how he has influenced other people, for example Tupac Shakur.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Túpac_Amaru

I looked at the article about the Rettig Report which examined human rights violations in Chile under Augusto Pinochet. Overall, everything in this article is relevant to the topic. There is nothing else in the article that is distracting from the overall topic. The article is not opinionated. It simply states facts about the subject. These sections include who the authors of the report were, statistics the report found, and the recommendations the report made. One viewpoint that some would argue was not represented is the fact that the article does not explicitly explain who exactly was on the commission in charge of writing this report. It briefly explains who Raul Rettig was, but it assumes that the readers of the article know the dynamics of situation being examined. Additionally, Opposition to the findings of the report (if it existed) are not mentioned at all by the article, which could be leaving out the viewpoint of Pinochet’s defenders. One citation does not work, but the rest do and are on topic. One is to the report itself, and two others are links to journal articles written in the 1990s. All paragraphs reference at least one source that seems to be relevant. The two journal articles come from the journal Human Rights Weekly which seems to be a neutral journal. The other working source is an english translation of the report in which the article is about. All of these working sources seem relevant and neutral. However it could be imagined that some of Pinochet’s supporters might disagree with the findings of the report or its interpretations as it paints him in a bad light. It is briefly noted that an additional report is made later than the Rettig report but the article does not go into detail at all about this. If there was any new information disclosed in the other mentioned report, the article could be seen as out of date. Additionally, the only two working sources that are not the report itself come from the 1990’s so it is conceivable that there has been more academic reporting on this matter that is not included in this article. In the talk page there is one comment about a section relating to the statistics listed. In the article this seems to have been adjusted after this comment was made. This article is of interest to three WikiProjects: The WikiProject on Human Rights, WikiProject Venezuela, and WikiProject Chile. It is rated of mid importance to the Human Rights and Chile projects and is rated as Start-Class by all. In general, this article does very little, if any interpretation of the subject matter. It simply states the facts that are known about the subject. This is very different from how we discuss topics in class as we try to interpret events and try to understand their importance in a larger context. This article simply lays out facts.

link to page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Pa%C3%ADs

The Wikipedia entry on Frank Pais at times struggles to remained focused on Pais himself and not on activities of the 26th July Movement in Santiago de Cuba. Since Pais was recognized as a key leader and organizer of urban resistance, this is not entirely inappropriate, but the article contains information that cannot be definitively attributed to Pais, as much as it makes sense too.

There was no overt bias or odd methods of framing the content of the article. Pais is discussed almost entirely in the context of the 26th July Movement activities in Santiago de Cuba. Considering he was executed at 22 years of age and his role in the revolution was his most noble accomplishment, this does not detract from the article. No viewpoint is over or under represented, and the article maintains a factual, neutral tone throughout.

A few of the citations on the page do not work (both labeled as such and not). many other citation links lead to pages of dubious credibility (non-academic, blog sources). Many pieces are biased, but do not try to appear otherwise. Two books on the Cuban Revolution are cited most frequently, and there are a few sources in Spanish (likely authored by Cubans).

Since the article is about a man who died in 1957 that facts are unlikely to change and there is nothing obviously out of date. There is certainly room for additional information however.

There are minimal conversations on the talk page. Two discussions were made by bots in regard to reformatting citations, and only one conversation appeared to involve direct edits to the content.

The article is part of WikiProject Biography and has a C-class quality rating.

1. Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

The primary focus of the article seemed to relate to the Catholic-centric nature of Marianismo, but its opening sentence did not address its effect on Latin American countries nor where it was located. The contents of the article was relevant, but it strayed from the important aspects.

1. Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article is clearly written by a white person as the Latin origins are largely ignored and treated as an afterthought rather than the center of the concept of “Marianismo” nor does it cover how or when the this impacted history. This article does not address the cisgender nature of the “great woman” and “great man” dichotomy. This lack of acknowledgement leaves a gap for the queer community.

The article uses generalizations such as “In Latin countries, it is frowned on women to appear in public without a man.” Such a statement groups all of Latin American countries together despite stark differences.

Despite addressing the queer community of MSM (men who have sex with men), the article does not include women who have sex with women in this context. It only addresses the women as a product of men’s actions, rather than those who have their own lives outside of men.

1. Are there viewpoints that are over-represented, or under-represented?

As stated in the previous question, the viewpoint of the man supersedes all other perspectives as the women are rarely mentioned without the direct support of a man. A brief three- sentence portion addresses the feminist perspective but does not touch nearly enough on the scope of Marianismo.

1. Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

The links work, however, the very first source I clicked on yielded little evidence used in the article. The article was more of a criticism of how the machismo/marianismo archetypes confine gender roles. The article briefly address this dichotomy but largely ignores it.

The claims of the article are largely biased and ignore women. Those who composed the article did not seem to have women in mind; in fact, they blatantly ignored them. Most of the sources did not portray the women as victims but addressed them in a neutral manner.  The wikipedians did not do the same and showed women only as men’s subordinates.

1.  Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

The references are reliable, however the editors did not interpret the information correctly. It primarily comes from scholars but some organizations have also been referenced. These articles are often written from the lens of a gender justice and Latinix standpoint in addressing the psychology/protection of endangered women. The bias is not noted but can be seen in the writing.

1. Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

The feminist history should be expanded upon to include more than a couple sentences, particularly because this is an aspect that is still directly impacting Latinix people in the present day.

In addition to the feminist aspect, Marianismo should be analyzed through a queer lens as the spread of HIV contaminated many Latina women.

It should be analyzed based on how it impacts different Latin American countries as there are various cultural implications depending where the concept of Marianismo is being studied.

1.  Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

Two students expressed interest in expanding on the page for a class but it seems there was not the expansion they intended. Both students are no longer working on the project.

1. How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

It is apart of Catholicism, Gender studies, Mexico, and Women’s history. It is rated to be of low-importance.

1. How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we’ve talked about it in class?

Wikipedia does not acknowledge its shortcomings or potential ways in which media has skewed the bias. We have not addressed the gender issues at length in class but looking at the syllabus I know we will!

The article that I chose to edit is the page for Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, which is a collection of essays by the Peruvian Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui. I think that everything on the article is relevant, but it is organized in a strange an inconvenient way. What seemed distracting to me was how the summaries of the content is organized. This page would seem better if you had a copy of the work in front of you and were following along with the page, but without the work it seems confusing. The article seems neutral, but it seems to forget that Mariategui was the one writing the facts about Peruvian history. Instead, the article states them as fact as if everyone agrees with Mariategui. This article also does not seem to have anything about anybody’s reactions to Mariategui’s essays. I think historically the most important reactions would be from the Peruvian Communist Party, later known as the “Shining Path,” and possibly from other Marxists or even the Peruvian government or population. The only reference is to the actual work itself. There are practically no secondary sources at all referenced. When there is a reference or citation, it is most likely quoting or paraphrasing the work itself. This hurts how Mariategui’s works are represented, as this article might as well be just a summary of his essays with no analysis or interpretation from other sources.

In terms of what could be added, a lot needs to be added. This article is part of the project WikiProject Books, and it barely follows the template and any of its regulations it has. In fact, the only thing that exists on this page is a summary of the work. Nothing about the author, background of the work, genre, or reception. For the talk page there is nothing there, except a link to the WikiProject Books guidelines and main page. This article is deemed a stub based on its current quality. In our readings and class discussions, we learned that Mariategui’s works were very much not unnoticed, as he inspired several movements and leaders in Latin America and especially in Peru. However, this page has nothing of that sort. According to this page, this work merely just exists and there is nothing else beyond a summary of the sections.