Citation:
Author: w.ding
In Mexico, Women Go on Strike Nationwide to Protest Violence
Source: New York Times
Title: In Mexico, Women Go on Strike Nationwide to Protest Violence by Paulina Villegas, March 9, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/americas/mexico-women-strike-protest.html
In February and March of 2020, Mexico witnessed massive demonstrations and a nationwide strikes demanding government attention toward gender-based violence and women’s rights. After years of human abductions, disappearances, sexual assaults, and violence in Mexico, many perpetrators have reaped the rewards of getting away with these horrific crimes. It is also important to point out that most of these victims are women. “As violence in the country escalates, the number of femicides, or the killing of women and girls killed because of their gender, has also increased” and, in 2019, “Mexican authorities registered 1,006 such killings, a 10 percent jump over the year before” (Villegas).
Time and again, the Mexican president’s has been accused of indifference. While he still pays lip service to women’s rights, his response to these issues leaves women’s rights groups without much support. “The unprecedented collective action also tested the leadership of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As smaller protests shook Mexico City in the preceding month, he appeared unable to recognize the magnitude of the mounting frustration, blaming the killings of women on past neoliberal policies.” However, It’s not just caused by the epidemic; violence in Mexico has been on the rise in all categories due to the economic downturn and regional instability in recent years. “Larger efforts in Latin America to organize women around reproductive rights, equal pay, or the treatment of women in the home or workplace have revealed the class, religious, and cultural cleavages that characterize women s movements the world over” (Dawson 331). During an economic downturn or decline, the working class and poor employment range is limited, especially for women and particularly for mothers.
On the other hand, the reasons for the government’s disregard of these issues are far-fetched. For instance: “In the free for all that was the border zone, where hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through every year, and only a few stayed, few people of influence had any interest in pressuring the state over the disappearances of a few poor women. Already under pressure because of growing crime and tightened budgets, Mexican officials first ignored the crimes because of the ethnicity, class, and reputed professions of some victims (some may have been sex workers), and then botched the investigations by torturing suspects until they confessed” (Dawson 332). However, the government treats crime as a political element of opposition and employment for a minority of poor women. But the government’s neglect has brought many difficulties and challenges to working-class women in Mexican society; for example, age discrimination, gender discrimination, and even crime.
In conclusion, the working class and low employment range is limited during an economic downturn or decline, especially for female citizens. Government neglect has led to social discrimination and an increase in crime, which has created many issues for working-class women in society. Although the Mexican government has introduced relevant laws, the government’s words and deeds still need to be improved and pay more attention to social problems affecting these groups.
Citation:
Villegas, P., Mcdonald, B., & Tovar, M. (2020, March 09). In Mexico, Women Go on Strike Nationwide to Protest Violence. Retrieved December 09, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/americas/mexico-women-strike-protest.html
Che Guevara and the CIA in the Mountains of Bolivia
This photo was taken in Bolivia on October 9, 1967. In this photo is the final moment of a revolutionary captured by U.S-trained Bolivian forces. In the middle is Che Guevara, whose expression is glazed over and covered in numerous bruises, including piercings in his arms and an incomplete finger. His other arm is out of the frame, though it is thought to have been injured as well. According to the article, “Che Guevara was executed in the hills of Bolivia after being captured by the U.S trained Bolivian military battalions. A CIA operative, Felix Rodriguez, was present. U.S. officials had been tracking Guevara’s whereabouts ever since he disappeared from public view in Cuba in 1965.”
Latin America entered a new revolutionary era with the outbreak of the Cold War and the rise of populism in the 1950s. Guevara and Castro were idealistic revolutionaries who are willing to use violence to ferment a new revolution within the region. The rise of Cuban revolutionaries was of interest to communistic states, such as the Soviet Union. But the communist revolution brought its disadvantage. On the economic side, the Cuban economy lacks diversification and relies heavily on the Soviet Union for financial support. “Centralized budgeting failed spectacularly. The government confronted food shortages as early as 1962 when it began rationing food, clothing, and consumer items. By 1963 production volumes of any number of staple crops had plummeted and production across the economy had declined. The sugar harvest also fell, from 6.7 million tons in 1961 to 3.8 million in 1963.” (Dawson 253)
On the political side, the United States government began to take a hostile attitude towards Cuba after its communist revolution. The Bay of Pigs invasion marked the first high point of U.S. anti-Cuba action, but it does not mean that the United States has given up on its goal of overthrowing Castro. In 1975 and 1976, Idaho senator Frank Church held a series of hearings to investigate the covert activities of the U.S. government concerning the alleged assassinations of five prominent political figures in the Third World. The assassinations (four out of five of which were successful) spanned the years from 1960 to 1970 and took place from the Caribbean to Central Africa and Southeast Asia. In the 1960s, Guevara was expanding his revolutionary activities globally, using Cuba as his base of operations. At this point, the international situation was tense, with the major powers of the world on the proverbial edge. “The Cubans even went so far as to develop an informal Ministry of Exporting Revolution headed by Guevara, who traveled from the Congo to Bolivia to assist fellow insurgents. Revolutions broke out in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, and Nicaragua, to name only a few of the major cases. Che announced the famous goal of creating “100 Vietnams” to challenge the U.S. armed forces.” (210)
In conclusion, even at the end of his life, Guevara still believed that his spirit would one day reignite the revolution in Latin America. However, his overreaching idealism and large spending on costly conflicts caused the Cuban economy to go downward and isolate the nation from the global market. However, Guevara made a series of revolutionary gains in his early years, from opposing dictatorship to combating American expansionism. But in the end, he ignored the needs and principles of himself and others, causing his downfall.
Work Cited
Che Guevara and the CIA in the Mountains of Bolivia. (2020, October 09). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-intelligence/2020-10-09/che-guevara-cia-mountains-bolivia
Dawson, Alexander. Latin America since Independence : A History with Primary Sources, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, chapter 8
Wood, James A. and Anna Rose Alexander, editors. Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019
Street in downtown Buenos Aires.
Street in downtown Buenos Aires.
This photo is taken between 1850 and 1900 in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the picture, we see a lot of the European-style suits, European-style buildings, and cars. Even it is difficult to recognize the color of the people in the picture, but we still can see the black man in the lower-left corner dressed in a fancy suit. In the center of the photograph, a child in a sailor’s suit, but we can tell the color of this child is more like light skin; the child looks very much like a white person.
Argentina emerged as one of the most dynamic economies of the 20th century. Stability has brought a boom in export-oriented agriculture, as well as migration. It attracted large numbers of European immigrants. Immigrants have brought diversity to Argentina. Thus, Intermarriage has gradually become a trend and also a political way to merge with the elite. “Troubled by the prospects for their nations to become civilized because of the racial makeup of their societies, Latin American elites undertook any number of projects to improve the race. Where possible, they gradually erased the stain of blackness or Indianness through Intermarriage or reclassification. Many were reclassified as trigueño or “wheat-colored.” Others hoped for redemption through education, modernization, hygiene, nutrition, healthy motherhood, and any number of other improvements, believing that if they could elevate the poor, racially compromised masses out of their civilizational slumber, their societies might prosper.” (Dawson 76)
On the economic side, the development of agriculture also drives the Argentine industry. Argentina’s export trade brought great wealth to the country and its people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, “the very extensiveness of the agriculture practiced, and the sheer volume of freight involved necessitated the creation of a widespread transportation network which indirectly led to the rapid unification of the domestic market, focusing on the major ports of shipment. These countries display the characteristics of regions referred to earlier as constituting an expanding frontier of the industrializing European economy.” (Furtado 268) Although the immigrants were mainly free, they cultivated the relations between Argentina’s elite and Europe, which played a positive role in economic development. The economic activities of immigrants also form actual control over Argentina’s economic development direction. This is also the reason why we can see many European-style buildings in the pictures. “Latin Americans wanted to prove that their countries were as capable as any other of participating in the endless cycles of innovation, artistic and scientific that characterized modernity. (Furtado 268)
In conclusion, Argentina’s export trade brought great wealth to the country and its people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; stability has brought a boom in export-oriented agriculture, as well as migration. The collapse of the colonial political order gave Latin America the concept of defining the world’s nations. Argentina became one of the most prosperous countries in the world during its golden years.”
Citation:
Celso Furtado, Economic Development of Latin America: Historical Background and Contemporary Problems, trans. Suzette Macedo (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 47–51. © 1976 Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission.
Problems in Modern Latin American History (Latin American Silhouettes) (p. 286). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Gate on the Canal of Chalco, Mexico
This image from 1824, and it shows a gate on a canal at Chalco, Mexico. This picture shows me the diversity of content. The dress, culture, and architecture of this picture have symbolic meanings. It represents distinct characteristics, ethnicity, and identities that make a group different from another in this image. While the image looks unremarkable, it also sheds light on stereotypes, biases, and truest history.
In the central part, we can see some of the characters’ faces and expressions. It seems to be a deliberately sought out Angle to show the faces of these people. We see many people sitting in a small boat at the front, but behind them are fewer people of different colors. From the clothing and dress, we can see that these people have different identities. Someone is playing the piano; someone is standing very deliberately. You can see it in the background architecture; it looks very European. Whether it is the dress or the architecture, I will think of these people as representing the old aristocracy.
Even the image is from 1824, After Santa Anna and Guadalupe Victoria deposed Iturbide and set up a republic. Slavery still exists. In the articles we read before. but why does this image make these aristocrats so contrived and annoying? In the past, people seize the land to become the local aristocracy, turning the indigenous people into their own tenants. Then, they let them change their name to Christ, make them their own slaves, and then carry out the slave trade. The bad side is also apparent, hindering local culture development, the emergence of national conflicts, and shows the competition for interests. It also leads to social instability.In the articles, Angela Batallas tries to carry out the slave revolution through litigation; they argued that “one could not free the colony without freeing all the people.” At the time, more people thought it was just something that was common during the revolution, but I think it was the beginning of the end of slavery.
Finally, from the ethical perspective of modern society, colonies are the oblation of local culture and resources. At this point, the colonies were the product of the historical trend, the advanced civilization’s tool, the government of advanced civilization. Some countries are still under the influence of colonial culture.