Exploring Latin American Indigeneity: My Reflections Throughout LAST 303

  Week 4: The First New Chronicle and Good Government (PT 1) Reading the first half of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's text was so interesting because it was from such a unique, sometimes confusing perspective of a mestizo nobleman that narrated Andean history, culture, and the Spanish conquest of Peru. From this first half, there were a couple themes that really stood out to me: The first of which is how Guaman Poma repeatedly emphasized his humility and referred to himself as "your humble servant" when addressing the king and that he didn't want anything in exchange for writing this insanely detailed and extensive text, but then would add in how laborious it was to learn multiple different dialects and described the text as his life's work, his key to heaven, and had sections that detailed his family line and nobility, that he was a prince. I think that while obviously this is super ironic and pretty contradicting, it's also strategic; this text is addressed t...

 Week 3: Popol Vuh Parts 3 and 4 The entire second half of the Popol Vuh was so interesting to read, but there were a couple things that especially stood out to me: Throughout both parts, I thought that it was super clear how much value is placed on knowledge and how important it is to the K'iche'. In the text, figures were only praised surrounding their knowledge of the world;  One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu were visionary seers on the face of the earth, the Framer and Shaper simply sent their thoughts into the world to search for humanity, the true people made from maize were only true because they spoke, looked, listened, and their knowledge was completed by everything under the sky, and they thank the gods because now they "speak and listen, ponder and move". I what hammered this point home for me though was that Xpiyacoc and Xmucane redesigned and limited humanity's vision and knowledge level, because their initial sense of the world was comparable to the gods...

Week 2: Popol Vuh Parts 1 and 2 I absolutely loved this week's readings of the first half of the Popol Vuh! Learning about the Maya K'iche' cosmovision that encompasses the origin of the world, creation of humans, their gods, phenomena, and moral values was fascinating and I'm excited to discuss the text in class tomorrow. In Part 1, which narrated the creation of the world and humans, I found it super interesting how the importance of orality was emphasized throughout. In the beginning, there was nothing, "then came the word"; the Heart of Sky came together with Sovereign and Quetzal Serpent to verbally discuss their vision for the space, and to make the earth, they simply spoke the word. The text contains lots of dialogue and conversation between gods with exclamation and question marks, which I think communicates the importance of council and group consultation in decision-making, as well as the power of the spoken word. This continues with the natural and ...

Week 1: Course Introduction Hi everyone! I'm Vanessa Leibel, and I'm a third-year student majoring in B.Sc. Global Resource Systems with a minor in B.A. Spanish Studies. I'm from Victoria, and I chose UBC because I love the mountains, beaches, and lifestyle of the West Coast but need the busy bustle of Vancouver! I love playing indoor or beach volleyball, getting coffee (an iced dirty chai is my go-to), watching sunsets at Wreck beach, and Thursday night karaoke at Fringe with my roommates.  Within my Global Resource Systems program, I specialize in a region and a resource, and I'm focusing on environmental sustainability in Latin America. I grew up spending winters in Mazatlan, Mexico, where I became fluent in Spanish and fell in love with Latin American culture, history, and literature. Since then, I've had the opportunity to conduct research projects in Costa Rica with a Bribri community regarding rural climate change mitigation strategies, and participated in a ...