1. The most common literary device associated with Latin America is known as Magical Realism.

Its used to create almost unbelievable situations which have their roots ingrained in reality, making situations feel larger than life. Though its a very accurate genre for Latin American to have dominating its literary works, many of the real life events throughout history seem to have been made more grandiose than could possibly be true. Many of the political happenings described in Marquezs Nobel speech fit this to a T. The mysterious deaths of beloved presidents while others died giving a speech from their palace as an entire army stormed the gates. Another president who held a funeral for his severed leg, and the convoy of eleven thousand mules carrying one-hundred pounds each of gold from Cuzco only to disappear on their way. Back in the world of fiction it allows writers and film makers to show the rest of the world the stunning beauty of Latin America and the rich culture of the people living there while leaving them to ponder whether what they just read was an embellished work of art, or perhaps a more true to life than expected description of an amazing land. 2. Bartolome de las Casas Devastation of the Indies was a jumping off point for the creation of the Black Legend because it was one of the first pieces to openly criticize the Spanish on their treatment of the indigenous people in the New World. He called out the Spaniards on their behavior of killing and abusing the native peoples generosity and acceptance, claiming the true aim of the Christians was gold and that their greed and ambition were the driving force behind their acts. Creating a striking juxtaposition between the natives and the Spanish he also praised the indigenous people for their humbleness, cleanliness and intelligence. He stated that only once killings, thefts and torturing began did the natives throw out their generosity and begin striking back at the Spaniards. 3. The archaeologists in The Inca Rebellion found a mass grave site which gave some evidence as to how a small number of Spanish soldiers held off a much larger number of Incan soldiers. They

discovered that the Spanish may have created some of the first gunshots seen in the Americas at the battle of Lima. 4. The garbage culture springing up around Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City is largely due to the massive population boom in these areas. The Mexico City population doubled between 1960 and 1980 from 4-5 million to 8-10 million people. Now in the current day the population is estimated at 22-25 million people, almost 80% of which is urban. Because of the 500% population increase in 50 years, sanitation and other related services have not been able to keep up with everyone in the cities. Just as much an issue is the fact that trash created per individual has not been reduced in this time either, and may very well have increased with the innovation of convenience foods and other such items. 5. Rigoberta Menchu won the Nobel Prize for literature for her book I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Her autobiography highlighted the plights of the Mayan people during the Guatemalan civil war, published in 1984. The sections we covered highlighted the daily life and prejudice faced on the finca, or plantations, and in Guatemala City. The estates described in the novel were coffee plantations where the indigenous people worked for nearly slave labor. They made so little that Rigoberta describes going into the mountains to collect mimbre for supplementary income. In the city it showed how looked down upon the indigenous people were and how poorly they were treated as servants. Often left out one day of the week to fend for themselves, many were described as having been forced into prostitution for survival and some spoke very little Spanish which only exacerbated their struggles with a language barrier between themselves and their employers. I believe it shows not only the plights and prejudices against the native people, however, but also the sense of resilient pride they have in their culture and practices. This is a critically useful tool for the modern day Mayans in Guatemala for rebuilding the culture that was stepped on and stamped out for so many years.

Just as well, because so few Latin American authors have won the Nobel Prize for literature, having this recognition for the Mayan people should be extremely helpful in their struggle for recognition and acceptance in Guatemala. 6. A nahual is similar to a spirit animal in the Mayan culture. It is assigned to a baby at birth and is determined by the day of the week theyre born on. It is said that a child, depending on its nahual, will develop personality traits and tendencies similar to that animal. Because of this, the child is not told what their nahual is until they are thought to be mature enough to have developed their own personality. When one decides to marry and have children of their own they are finally told how the nahual system works so that they may start the process anew. 7. Latin America has been rampant with political unrest throughout its history, and along with that comes many forms of activism and protest. Some of these protests get violent, such as political coups and overthrows sometimes staged by the countrys own military. Events like General Augusto Pinochets militaristic overthrow of Chile in 1973 are a good example of how the political differences among a people can leave a bloody trail thousands of bodies long in its wake. After having established a dictatorship for himself using the countrys constitution, many forms of non-violent protest began springing up from the citizens. Boycotts and open protest, such as marches and public demonstrations, using the media to expose human rights violations alleged against the Chilean government as well as other more subtle forms of protest like the forever helpful use of the arts as a personal protest. Though it is a much more arduous process, non-violent protest works in such a way that significantly few people are left dead or missing, and in 1989 their efforts finally paid off as Pinochet resigned from presidency. 8. One of the factors, among many, for the Cuban Revolution was the increasingly large rich-poor gap arising in Cuba after the economy became stagnant when previous President Fulgencio Batista staged a military coup and resumed power, creating alliances with the major land

owners of the country. This situation was exacerbated when he also paired up with American Corporations and allowed prostitution and gambling rings run rampant in areas such as Havana. Viva Cuba seemed to have been trying to avoid any references, unless very minor, to the Cuban Revolution, instead focusing on the story of Malu and Jorgito and their adventure in running away from home. 9. Mayan is spoken primarily in Central America, largely in Guatemala where the native population is forty percent of the total. In the South American rainforests the many forms of Incan are spoken by a large portion of the indigenous tribes. Though for every native Latin American culture there is almost as many non-mutually intelligible dialects and languages. 10. The tango, for being a dance style, tells a surprising amount about Argentinian history. It shows during the early years of the dance how men were held on the lighter end of a double standard, being able to dance the tango while women who did were typically only in brothels, or else considered whores. Later in the history of the dance it was outlawed by the regime following Hipolito Yrigoyen in attempts to make the people forget the general prosperity under his rule. After the ban on the tango was lifted a renaissance began, putting a more modern twist on it and removing the stigma that was attached to gender and class.

Essay Question 3: Displacement seems to be one of the major elephants in the room where Latin America is concerned. With so many sources of displaces peoples; civil wars, poor infrastructure, political unrest etc. it seems as if the age which we live in is slowly causing new cultures to spring up where these displaced people end up. The major example of this being the Garbage Culture that has begun growing outside of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in which the population explosion in these areas has been so massive that sanitary services have not been able to keep up, leaving the people living in the area with little choice but to work in and live around the resulting landfills. Fifty, or perhaps even 30 years prior it would be unthinkable that an entire culture of people could be constructed around working in and living off of a massive landfill. Though a form of displacement that is very much so familiar to the world is that cause by political and militaristic actions. Particularly in the 1960s and 80s migration from Cuba was en masse, and around the same time in Argentina many people fled the country in fear due to the Dirty War. Though its not to be mistaken as a modern concept, this has been a theme in Latin America for many hundreds of years whether it be migration from country to country or upheaval within a nation, particularly concerning the indigenous people. Typically the reason for the displacement of a people is awful, but perhaps the resulting mix of cultures that comes of it is a silver lining for humans as a whole in the long run. Our world is slowly closing in on itself and coalescing, mingling cultures and languages to create a world thats more flat. Essay Question 4: This entire course in general feels as if it has been through Foreign Eyes and indeed it has been, up until now Ive had little exposure to the Latin American world. Dating back to when the Spanish came in, there has been little rest in the constant stream of political upheaval,

reformation and inevitable protest. Such a common thing throughout Latin America, in the eyes of someone born and raised in the United States it seems baffling to me that this could be such an annual occurrence. Perhaps this shows the ripples and waves caused by the Spaniards when they came over with few intentions other than conquering and such rampant thoughts of greed, its as if it began a tidal wave that hasnt been left uninterrupted to resolve itself in over 500 years. Though on the other hand, looking through the eyes of an outsider on Latin America also shows us a great deal of stunning beauty and an unrelenting stream of oddities, to our eyes of course. Such things as the Argentinian modern day cowboys living side by side with penguins, and the massive expanses of rainforest throughout which there are millions of species of plants and animals unseen anywhere else in the world! All of this has breathed life into a very unique culture unlike any other. A culture in which tribal communities can still flourish in areas tens or hundreds of miles from electricity or modern day services, each of which has developed a language completely unique to its culture. All of this lends itself very well to the notion of Magical Realism. Common everyday things in Latin America may seem strange and exotic, and with a little embellishment and storytelling one finds themselves in a world built on the impossible. I believe what Marquez is referring to is the fact that looking at a culture so different from our own may serve to reinforce that were of a different people, when really were all humans. Perhaps for some finding such a culture shock causes us to retreat back into our own comfort zones where we feel safe and know what awaits us, when really all that does is causes us to remain in the dark about the rest of the world and causes us to become ever more solitary. Looking at such things through patterns not our own may not be the best way to do so, it would seem to me that these wonders should be looked at as if from native eyes looking onto another part of the overall culture of the human race. To not exclude others or ourselves just because theyre from a

different culture, but rather to accept and embrace them for the greater good to form a more connected and social human race, thus giving us out freedom to explore the world through the eyes of our own without fear or being rejected or shocking ourselves into retreat.

Sources: Kurtz, Lester. "Chile: Struggle against a Military Dictator (1985-1988)." Movements and Campaigns. N.p., June-July 2009. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.

"Fulgencio Batista (Cuban Dictator)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.