Journal Entry #2 Colonial Legacies
Read: lecture notes entitled “Colonial Legacies” carefully;
Chasteen “Born in Blood and Fire” chapters 1-3
Chasteen and Wood: pp. 1-6 “The Racial Heritage of Colonialism”
Newspaper articles: “Plastic surgery for Peru’s poor” and
“Across the Americas, Indigenous Peoples Make Themselves Heard”.
Drawing from your lectures, lecture notes, and your readings, thoughtfully respond to the following questions. They are broad questions that encompass three centuries of the history of the region. They are a way of “identifying central conflicts” as Chasteen says in his book. Provide examples. (This is good rehearsal for your midterm)
1) Take three of those short pieces from Chasteen and Wood’s Problems in Latin America: Sources and Interpretations. Tell us what that piece is about. Then tell us why it is important for our understanding of Latin America during this period.
2) Chasteen describes the class system as one in which lighter skinned Latin Americans seem to be richer than darker skinned Latin Americans, what are the roots of that? Perhaps more importantly, what are the consequences of that?
3) Bring in examples from your newspaper articles. In the Plastic Surgery article, for example, why do Indian women in modern day Peru risk their lives to have plastic surgery to "de-Indianize" their noses? More broadly, in what ways do these modern-day conflicts or problems trace their roots back to the colonial period?
4) Chasteen ends Chapter 3 (Independence) with this quote: “Despite the achievement of independence, the struggle to decolonize Latin America in a deeper sense was only just beginning.” What does he mean by this? Provide specific examples.
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