El Espacio Latinoamericano

"The first step is D: describe.  -Describe the situation in concrete, observable terms.   The second is I: interpret.  -Try to find at least three different interpretations of the interaction or occurrence.   And finally, E: evaluate.  -Evaluate what you observed or experienced.  Consider how you might have felt if you were a member of the host culture and held the dominant cultural values and beliefs."   An Uncomfortable Situation The only thing that I can remember that was uncomfortable during the trip was the way people greeted each other by a kiss on the cheek. With each greeting, the correct way to say hello was to have a kiss on the cheek with the person you are seeing. With some people, we would only have the kiss and with other people there would be a kiss and a hug. There were also people that would not hug or kiss me when we saw each other. Description: During the New Years celebration, the extended family came over to watch the fi...

I was told that this would happen, and that if I followed a few simple steps that everything would be fine. I didn't expect it to happen all at once or for it to affect everything,  but here I am awake in the middle of the night talking to no one. Here I am writing about "Culture Shock". I didn't think it was possible for this to happen because I was in Chile. I'm in the glorious Chile that is protected by the Andes. The Chile that clawed its way out of a dictatorship and emerged stronger for it. This is the Chile that gave me Dame la Mano by Gabriela Mistral that I would recite under my breath all day in high school.  This is the Chile that birthed Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda. This is the Chile that I studied with Dr. Rojas, and the same Chile that America tried to destroy. I'm surrounded by all this history, love, and beauty that I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams. When I got off the plane in Santiago, it felt like returning home from war...

The adventure starts tomorrow and I am freaking out a little bit. My brain it is running and I keep wondering what I am going to forget to bring because I always forget something. Do you remember back in elementary school, when reading out loud was the most stressful part of life?  You would look down the rows, see you were the fifth person, and then skip to the fifth paragraph in the reading.  You study that paragraph and make sure you knew how to say all the words so no one would tease that you couldn't read.  Then the teacher would call on the next student randomly not going in order of the rows!! That is the feeling I have about the Chile trip at the moment. I'm scared that all my preparation will be for nothing because I've studied the wrong. I'm nervous that even though I've taken Spanish  almost every year since the eighth grade, I will step onto Chilean soil and know absolutely nothing. I wonder if the scenery and food will be as great as I have pi...

The link to the article would not open, so I used the following article which may or may not be the right one. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/12/11/279943/- The cueca was named the national dance of Chile by Pinochet for nationalism, but it was reincarnated as a protest dance by simple acts by the people. This was one of the simplest and safest ways to protest the dictatorship since the dance was approved by the government. The cueca was used as a way to remember the friends and relatives that disappeared during the dictatorship and following Pinochet’s death, the tap portion was a way to dance on his grave even though he was cremated. When I first watched the video, the first thing I noticed was that no one was touching their dance partner. This was weird to me because Latin dances are usually intimate with the dancers being an extension of the other. The second thing I saw was the handkerchiefs that everyone was holding. I thought they were a symbol of submission because o...

Roberto Matta was part of the surrealist movement but added social issues and politics into his work. Matta was impacted by Pablo Picasso’s Guernica which was an abstract painting that showed the horrors of war and violence. Matta’s works addressed the realities of World War II. During the 1970s under the censorship of Pinochet, artists would be post their work publically and flee in order to get their protests seen. Artists like Adasme would use their bodies as the art in order to get certain visuals to the public like suspending oneself by the ankles from a metro sign in the capital in order to make the stories of the regime more real to the masses. These forms of are forced people to confront the events in Chile head on rather than having them be abstract ideas that could be chalked up to scary stories and later forgotten. Art was used to document the daily lives of citizens under the regime when words were so heavily monitored that no one could voice their struggles without being ...

Victor Jara was a revolutionary that used music as a statement against the Pinochet regime. He called all Chileans to rise up and used their voice to demand their rights against the government, and he gave his life to the cause. Until his dying breath, he stood for the freedom of Chile from the oppressive regime and his hands still guide individuals to demand equality, justice, and reparation from the government. Jara used his folk music to show the truth about Chilean society even though it placed him and his family in danger. Violeta Parra was also a Chilean folk singer and influenced the work of Victor Jara. She was one of the most influential women in the movement and used her  music to help the Nueva Cancion movement that called for change around Latin America. Parra criticized the status quo of the wealthy in Chile and address their involvement in the status of the socially and economically marginalized classes.  Los Prisioneros were a Chilean rock ban...