LAST LAST...

Hello classmates and professor,
I hope you had a little chuckle after reading my "hilarious" pun/title. But it's true, last tuesday was our last LAST 201 class and it's sorta hard to imagine that already its over. I am super happy/excited that MY first year at university is OVER!!!... almost.( I still have exams and a paper to write. ) But it was not like the year was not exciting nor happy, I just enjoy how time keeps moving forward. (means more adventures to take on!)
Anyways, I would like to list some of the things I enjoyed most/ what I will take away with me and suggestions. First I would say that I liked writing blogs. It added a new medium to the class that was new for me. It would have been nice to include a little more of the blogs into the classroom discussions though. I would have liked to each week perhaps to read one of the blogs out loud in class and then discuss about it for a bit. But i know that some people are shy and don't want people to read their blogs out loud..
Another thing I enjoyed was the second part of the semester in our class. I am super appreciative Jon, that you took the time to listen to our criticisms and tried to incorporate some of our suggestions in the class. The beginning was a bit repetitive in terms of style, but later we had videos and learnt about your trip to Haiti that added a new dynamic to the class. I liked how you incorporated youtube into academia! But one suggestion I have is to have in class presentations instead of writing a review paper. Or we could present our review paper in any form of a presentation because I think that it would be interesting to hear about everybody's experiences. After all sharing experiences is part of the fabric of culture right? One of the reasons why I wanted to take latin american studies was to meet latinos haha.. but also to meet other people who have travelled to south america or are just interested in the different cultures. So if we could have organized some social event/ field trip that would have been fun!
What I will take away from this class is a broader knowledge on the topic of mixing theories and culture. I didn't know there was so much debate in the cultural literary world. Doing the final paper was a really good way to tie everything together.

Thanks everybody and hope to see you around!

Is it odd that I liked reading about someone's bottom?

THANKS JON!!! This weeks readings were great! Especially Mary C. Beltran's piece on Jennifer Lopez's "Cross-over Butt". I really enjoyed it because of how clearly Beltran articulated herself. She was so critical and yet so clear. It was definitely a welcome read for me, probably because the past few readings were kind of confusing to understand in their translated form. But to return to commending Beltran, she wrote an exceptionally interesting piece and highlighted some very interesting and valid points regarding the construction of beauty that currently exists in society.
I found it intriguing to read about how Hollywood and mainstream media portray beauty. And how even though Jennifer Lopez is proud of her natural beauty and is figure that stands up to conventional beauty norms, loving her big ass and such , scholars still argue that aspects of her identity still remain confined and subjugated to a white primacy. Therefore we don't really know whether or not our fascination with Jen's butt is a progressive step that is breaking social constructions (or rather reconstructing them) or if it is perpetuating them. (Beltran highlights how Latina and African women have historically been eroticized and considered objects of sexuality noting how during slavery African women were "property".) What came to my mind halfway through reading this was the question, what is beauty? And who decides? What I mean is, is what is beautiful decided by men who see beauty or is it decided by women who encompass or embody it, (literally)? I am assuming here that beauty applies to women only, however one could argue that that is not true. Or maybe it is a combination of both? Or maybe it isn't even in the hands of individual women and men, rather it is political elites deciding what is beautiful for the purpose of efficient governance? I believe that beauty is defined on all these levels. We can see in magazines how mass media perceives beauty, read in government narratives (political art) to see what fits into the national body, ( historically women were considered responsible for reproducing the nation,) or write and receive love letters to see what the individual deems beautiful. All these sources shape beauty. Therefore I see beauty as a shared meaning, the kind developed through interactions of people and culture. Influenced and influences and is continuously evolving or being reflected upon. Beltran points this out nicely at the end of her piece, that even though Jennifer Lopez's butt may not have necessarily had a deep impact on breaking beauty norms, it certainly evoked scholarly debate about its implications. This in itself has created change and new meaning for which I argue is reconstructing our interpretation of beauty. It is comforting and frightening to know that beauty is merely an invention of our imagination.

I really enjoyed the first and last article as well but don’t blame me if I feel that Jen’s butt is more fascinating to write about.

Hybridity: The Most Timely Theory Thus Far

"Canadian consumers buy cars from Germany, Germans take holidays in Italy, Italians buy spices from Africa, Africans import oil from Kuwait, Kuwaitis buy Japanese cameras, and the Japanese buy Canadian lumber."

This quote from my macroeconomics textbook on The Gains from International Trade, best highlights the notion brought up in Canclini’s text of how “life consists of constantly crossing borders.” The fact that Canadians consume cars from Germany, Germans take holidays in Italy… demonstrates the interconnectedness of our world today and the notion brought up in class, that “borders are now everywhere”. Reading this quote over again really illustrates how the boundaries of nations are slowly disappearing or rather are being redefined. We went into in class on how the the purpose of borders are no longer simply there to divide nations, rather to connect through its facilitation of trade. Inevitably this interaction of goods and services between countries results in a point where cultures mix with one another.

The reason why I decided to include this quote is because of how its relevance to term hybridity as I have interpreted from Canclini’s text. Hybridity as I understand, is not just a repetition of all the other terms we’ve studied so far, rather it tries to capture the current reality of our world. It is complexities reflect the reality of the complexities that are occurring all around us. Hybridity takes into account the expansion of global neo-liberal economic policies. These policies are reshaping the economic, political and social landscape of every country within this world. With increasingly spread of globalization, knowledge technological improvements, immigration, internet and trade, cultural mixing becomes more complex. Canclini introduces a term about mixing that truly takes into account all the changes and complexities that our world is going through today.

I think when countries export and import goods, it is impossible for them to separate aspects of their culture from the good it exports. Every good that a country produces is influenced by its culture and vice versa. Even the very trade agreement made by nations is done through some from of communication where cultural mixing happens. The very usage of products made in other countries brings with it its culture.

This is concept is so complicated I cannot even properly express myself. But it is definetly the most interesting one that we’ve discussed thus far.

Microcosms of Pop Culture

I remember when I was in living in Peru last year, every night the eldest teenage daughter and Rutty, the lady who cleaned, cooked and took care of us (also my close friend by the end of the trip,) would watch telenovelas as if it were a sort of religious ritual. If I came home in between the hour that the telenovela was on, it was like everything was put off, the broom sat against the wall with a pile of dust beneath it waiting to be swept up and homework splayed halfway complete across the dinning room table. Now that I look back, it is evident that telenovelas' influence on people and also culture is significant. Interestingly however, throughout the three months I was there I never ended taking the time to watch a single telenovela. I never watched one probably because I found them uninteresting or hard to relate to. Perhaps this is the very reason why telenovelas are so popular in Latin America. Nelson Hippolyte Ortega refers to the telenovela as being based upon "daily life", if this is so, then the everyday individual could watch the telenovela and relate to it.
But why do telenovelas try so hard to relate to the audiences? I believe it primarily has to do with generating profits. People will watch whatever they find interesting. The more people watch, the greater profits television stations make, as advertisers bid higher prices to plug their products. Ultimately this creates a new dynamic for both the show and audiences. We see that futebol in many instances seems like a sport that has sold out, can we say the same about the telenovela?

Throughout reading Ortega’s article, I kept thinking about the similarities between the telenovela and Keesing's metaphor of culture as a "coral reef". Both share that defining characteristic of continuously reshaping itself through time and interactions. The coral reefs changes with every layer of whatever grows, or attaches itself to it just like how the telenovela is reshaped through commercialization, people's interests, politics, etc. It is apparent that there are so many forces that readjust how the telenovela is produce.

I am curious though, is there something is this readjustment that has schematic way of doing so? Ortega suggests the some telenovelas are created or change schematically in terms of a homogenous/similar plot line that they follow. This begs me to rethink then my idea of how culture evolves. The issue of the telenovela following a prescribe routine in its interactions makes me questions whether this is true for popular culture. Do all interactions follow the assumption that contamination upon interaction is inevitable?

All in all I found that Futebol and Telenovelas share many similarities in its interactions within political, social and economical dimensions. All seem to act as function of one another and are continuously being redefined.

Transculturation

In Cuba Counterpoint by Fernando Ortiz I found it interesting to read the difference between acculturation and transculturation. Acculturation in Ortiz's point of view, does not describe the history and culture of Cuba as well as transculturation. Just to be clear between the two I went to look on to dictionary.com and here is what I found : Acculturation is the process of adopting cultural traits from another cultural group, whereas transculturation is the cultural change induced by foreign cultures.

What Ortiz argues is that the real history of Cuba is best described using the term transculturation. The land and the people have not simply adopted each others traits, but have readjusted to each others cultures in a what Ortiz calls a "new syncretism of cultures." (On a personal note, I didn't know that the natives in Cuba, like in Haiti, were wiped out by the European colonist. I find that interesting because it makes me wonder what sort of influences they would have on Cuba's contemporary popular culture.) Emphasized in this text is that what is contemporary Cuban culture is in a continuous process since the interactions between the paleolithic and neolithic natives to the Spanish colonist and subsequent African slaves and immigration.


Antonia Cornejo Polar takes a critical examination on the various types of literature by specifically classifying heterogenous and homogenous literature according to the processes of their production and consumption. The aim of this paper I believe was to provide a critical examination between these two distinctions, but I don’t really understand the purpose. Literature in Latin America encompasses a wide range of genres or "categories", but what I think Polar wanted to emphasize is that often these texts are heterogenous, meaning that they are a created through a complexities and conflicting circumstances from its production to its “consumption”. I admit that although this article contained lots of interesting substance,I believe I may have misunderstood parts of it as I frequently consulted the dictionary close by. But one thing caught my curiousity was when Polar explained the way in which middle class mestizos, through their publication of indigenista literature, conformed to a heterogenous dimension in such that they took on the interests of the indigenous when in fact most indigenista literature excluded these very people. This would be interesting to elaborate more in class through discussion.


In Transculuration, I believe what Millington was trying to argue was for more of a reflection upon the usage of the term transculturation. Millington discussed and analyzed Ortiz's text as he drew upon it various criticisms associated with it. I found this article interesting as it went more into depth whereas I found Ortiz's definition of transculturation a bit simplified. All in all the term transculturation seems very debatable but I liked what Millington said in his conclusion: " Such critical analysis may not in itself change the world but it can further understanding of what is happening in it".

Reflections

My reflections of the first half of the semester:

I feel like whenever I write reflections I never know how to begin. I guess I will start by writing about what my expectations were like before taking this class or how I felt in the beginning... Well I was very excited to take this class and hoped that it would link together some of the experiences I had in Peru last year with some relevant or interesting topics that I would learn in the classroom. Actually so far we've talked quite a bit about Peru in the classroom, which I find interesting.
Looking back at my initial post about popular culture in Latin America, I seem to have come to the conclusion that there is no single definition. There are many types of popular culture in Latin America and that they all have roots in various places. For instance in the Rowe and Shelling article we learnt how "Carnival has its origins in the Saturanlia and Bacchanalia of Ancient Greece and Rome" (I'm not sure if this is true, but nevertheless) we are presented with the fact that older European cultures have transcended certain aspects of their culture into parts of Brazil's culture through colonization. There were a few other examples roots of popular culture that come from various place, for instance another one was Portuguese colonizers that brought popular theatre performances called "dancas dramaticas" to Brazil. It sounds like these are very much one way exchanges, but they weren't. For every part that was introduced in Latin America, it has been reappropriated by those living in the communities. I'm sure that the dancas dramaticas that originally stem from Medieval Portugal are not preformed in the entirely same manner in Brazil, but rather they are a transformation of added, changed and reconstructed dimensions that reflect parts of the indigenous or whichever community's identity living within these places. Other roots or influences on popular culture that we've touched on include colonization, urbanization, neo-liberalization, and the mixing (mestizaje) of different groups. All in all there I have realized that popular culture is influenced through interactions of all sorts.
Thinking about what separates popular culture from "regular" culture or "high" culture, is that it is accessible. It is generally visible or a prevalent aspect in the everyday lives of most individuals in Latin America. Since most individuals in Latin America aren't part of the elite and mostly encompass the growing middle class or the lower class, in my interpretation, there may be a stronger sense of popular culture is these communities.
The People ultimately have a lot to do with popular culture. The spread, the evolution, the interactions of popular culture depends on people. A tricky question is, who are these people? The fact that there are many types of people, with their own cultures and ways of life, demonstrate popular culture is just as diverse or multifaceted as the people in it encompasses. Learning about popular culture, I have discovered, is quite complex because nothing is quite straight forward. One thing that is continuously reinforced in life, in the readings, and in the classroom is that It is necessary to think critically and that things take time to understand and there many never be a answer...

This ends my reflection on the first half of the semester and I hope the next half we can start to look deeper at some of the questions and the comments that I have and the other students in the classroom. Perhaps we can figure out if and how we (students in the classroom) are influenced by or actively influence popular culture in Latin America.

Rethinking Mixing

Originally when I started reading this weeks reading I was completely frustrated. The first reading I found very degrading and racist... I couldn't see the point in reading it. Why were we studying this dominating ideological discourse and what purpose does it serve to our study? I realized (after reading the response from our professor after my frustrated email) that there indeed was a purpose to reading this. It came after finishing reading it, then after completing the following reading. Both presented different perspectives that I felt balanced nicely, or at least presented the opportunity for critical analysis.
I found myself in the beginning of The Cosmic Race, The mission of the Ibero American Race by Jose Vasconcelos, unable to read a paragraph without saying "What?!" But then I realized that it was written in 1948 by a man who is considered a very controversial figure, but nonetheless expressed an typical rhetorical claim surrounding the inclusivity of Mestizaje and its importance to lead the world, through in a sense plucking the best of all races to achieve the greatest civilization. Yet I could not fully appreciate this text until I understood the context of when it was written, why it was written, by whom it was written and for whom it was written for... I am still trying to answer these questions as they help explain the text in more depth.
From what I understand it seemed that this text was written to promote the ideology of racial mixing and professing that it was an inclusive strategy to unify the country through what Vasconcelos suggest, a platform based on "love". The text however wasn't very convincing to me. Most of all Vasconcelos' judgments had not logical evidence attached, and his assumptions of difference races were based on constructed racial divides that did not seem to reflect any form of reality. Yet what this text ultimately serves for the benefit of understanding popular culture within Latin America, is its insight into a particular influential ideology that many hegemonic powers and political elites hold and have tried to perpetuate throughout Latin American societies. This is the notion that racial mixing with the goal of whitening and is the central aspect of the a constructed National Body.
The second article presents a more modern perspective into the analysis of the term and the context of mestizaje, one I feel was articulated more so in LAST 100 and what I presume is present in more recent geographical or anthropological research papers. Nevertheles "Rethinking Mestizaje" by Peter Wade still has its own biases and fallacies like the other article. Although it tries to resist the exclusive framework that mestizaje is built upon, (despite seemingly having an inclusive mask) and it uses the racial terms, such as black, white, indigenous, which only fortify already exclusive divides and thus Wade is not really able to get away from the exclusive connotations that mestizaje and race bring forth. A few questions to be critical about and aware is how we classify race and what that means to the individual and society.

---all in all i look forward to discussing the articles in class