Exploring Latin American Indigeneity: My Reflections Throughout LAST 303

  Week 7: I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala Menchu's novel was so interesting to read, both structure and content-wise. I've never read a book that was created from recorded interviews, and the oral element shone through in the syntax and also the narrative being in first person, which really drew me in to her story, perspective, and experiences as a reader. In comparison with the other texts that we've read so far in the course, this was the first one that followed the life events of one specific person, which not only taught me in-depth about being Indian and indigenous in Guatemala and the prejudice that comes with that, but also communicated that although this is one person's emotional struggle with racism, colonialism, and identity as Indian and indigenous, there are hundreds of thousands of others who have similar experiences who didn't get the opportunity to leave situations like in the fincas or share their stories. In short, for me personall...

 Week 6: Yawar Fiesta  Yawar Fiesta taught me about an aspect of Peruvian indigeneity that I had not heard about and narrated an andean indigenous and european conflict that I was not aware of; it was a super interesting, engaging, and eye-opening read. The book narrates the already existing (as in before the bullfighting regulation) conflicts between the mistis and the comuneros, and how the two are always distinctly separated as local and foreigner. Arguedas constantly criticizes the mistis, explaining that they just hang out in the parlor, gamble, get drunk, and get fat for their entire lives, and that they own the majority of the cropland but know nothing about agriculture, and that they colonized the wheat fields to plant alfalfa instead. Before reading Yawar Fiesta , all of my knowledge about Spanish-indigenous relations/conflict in Peru stemmed from Guaman Poma's text and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios reales de los Incas, both of which are situated in the 150...

Week 5: The First New Chronicle and Good Government (PT 2) For me, the second half of Guaman Poma's chronicle had a much clearer critique of the Spanish rule in Peru, although still a bit contradictory, and I thought that the ways in which he makes this critique were super interesting: Firstly, he explicitly defines the title of his work, a good government, as one "that enforces justice and maintains a separation between the Spanish and Andean worlds", which caught me off guard, because throughout almost the entirety of the first half, Guaman Poma intertwined Andean history, culture, and beliefs with those of Christianity, and then subsequently calls the Spanish viceroy the "Christian era" of Peru, distinguishing that it is, in fact, not a good government.  Then, he focuses a large section on criticizing the Spanish rule of viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo by praising the viceroys before and after him, and contrasting this with absolutely tearing apart his rule a...