Victoria Miller’s blog

 I really enjoyed the poems this week. I personally enjoyed Out of the Game the most because of how sarcastic it was. I also liked the contrast between the two. In the first poem I have we are shown the things that were given to the Cuban people. The poem came off very content with the progress of the Cuban revolution despite the facts that these were the basic of privileges. The poem says things like "I have the pleasure of walking my country," and "I can say cane" all the while sounding perfectly content as if it were a great privilege to say and do those things. I find this completely shocking because having the right to do an say what you want should be the base line of rights, or even below that. After writing that I realize that not even as Americans are we completely free to do these things as well, especially these past few years with the covid restrictions. However, under normal circumstances we are free to travel the country as we wish. In contrast the oth...

I really enjoyed the reading History will absolve me, it is one of my favorite reading that we did this year. I enjoyed reading his perspective and I still can believe that he made such a speech with out any notes. There were so many things that Castro talked about in his speech that I strongly agreed with and everything he said was very clear and understandable that it had no chance of being interpreted any other way. I also enjoyed the sarcastic and passive aggressive comments that he made through out the speech. These literature devices really show how passionate Castro was about his arguments against the government because he is not trying to be professional and he is just speaking his thoughts without restraint in my opinion.  I also appreciated how he not only used Cuba’s and Latin America’s history, but also the history of other countries as well as their beliefs to support his arguments. My favorite example of this was when he was arguing their right and obligation to rebel...

 Hi Seth, reading your post was really interesting. I also thought that the book seemed to have a very hopeless attitude. The thought of only existing to pass on DNA is something I hadn't thought about while reading the book but I makes you question if the work that Evita put into making a better Argentina was worth all the strife she got and the shortened life span. However, whether something is worth while or not can only be decided by the person involved.

 Hey Brooke, I also thought it was very to learn about how the women fought in the war. It was nice to see some representation of these amazing women in the Underdogs despite how little it was. 

 This week we read The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. I thought it was a very interesting read and gave me a new perspective on those who fought in the revolution. We are taught about a few revolutions in grade school but they normally leave out the gruesome side of the revolution. We mostly learn a sugarcoated and simpler version of what happened during these revolutions. However, Azuela writes about the “heroes” in a more realistic way with all their flaws and the cruel actions that make them less than heroes. It reminds me of some of the things about other revolutions that I learned about that are also not as pretty. I remember while I was learning about the American revolution we looked at a drawing from that time. The image showed a man covered in feathers with men around him forcing him to drink something. With this picture, we learned about how the American rebels would tar and feather soldiers as a way of protesting the taxes. To explain, when someone is being tarred and feat...

This week we watched Viva Zapata! and I found the film very interesting. The opening reminded me of all the cowboy movies I watched as a child. Zapata also reminded me of the main cowboys in those movies. He was portrayed with many of the characteristics that were given to the “honorable” cowboys. The ideal person that are portrayed in both movies, are people with strong morals and someone that will do anything to follow through those morals even if it endangers themself. They are also willing to risk their own lives to protect the lives of others. Zapata risked speaking out against president Diaz in order to help the other indigenous as well as fights against the president. He even mentions that he was not fighting in order to receive a reward and would not except it.  Similar to Zapata, The Lone Ranger spent all his time helping others and fighting for the law and never wanted even a thanks for his action.  

Hi Brooke! I really like the connection you made between the tango and Sarmiento, I hadn't consider that before. I thought it was interesting how Argentina had all these unique things like the dance and the music, but the elites seemed to not notice this or believed it wasn't significant enough to consider as a defining factor in their cultural identity and, in the case of Sarmiento, only mentioning them briefly in documents about Argentina culture.