My Response to Alexis's "Blog Seven"

Haha, thanks for those awesome pictures of the band! I really liked your analysis of “Revolution.” However, I’m still not entirely convinced that Demetrio was all that innocent in the book. He ordered Cervantes to burn down Don Mónico’s house, and it was very unclear whether or not his family was still inside when he did so. And when Camilla told Demetrio how Güero was abusing his prisoner, he merely “wrinkled his brow but made no answer” (Azuela 109). Yes, he wasn’t involved as often in the looting, pillaging, and violence, but he still was involved several times, and did nothing to stop the violent acts he saw others committing.

(http://alexislaciv.blogspot.com/2014/02/blog-seven.html#comment-form)

Blog 7: Songs and Such

It was really fun today in class when we sang “La cucaracha” and “Cielito lindo.” When we sang “Cielito lindo,” it reminded me of this episode of I Love Lucy. (By the way, if you’ve never seen an episode of I Love Lucy, DO IT. This show is cheesy but hilarious, and I would recommend this episode, “The Freezer,” “Lucy Does a TV Commercial,” or “Job Switching.”) In “The Freezer,” Lucy and Ethel accidentally purchase 700 pounds of meat, and so Ethel tries to stall Ricky and Fred while Lucy moves the meat from their new freezer to the currently non-functional furnace by asking Ricky to sing for her. One of the songs Ricky sings to her is “Cielito lindo.” My family and I actually watched this episode this past Christmas Eve, and when Ricky started singing this song, I shouted “We just sang this in my sequence!” Needless to say, I was very excited to sing along and demonstrate to my parents what I had learned.

Our discussion of “La cucaracha” during Professor Stark’s part of the class was very interesting. Just hearing the lyrics alone, you would never know that “la cucaracha” refers to General Huerta, and reflects his reputation of being an alcoholic and addicted to drugs. It sort of reminds me of another song that you wouldn’t necessarily understand just by hearing the lyrics: “Yankee Doodle.” I think most Americans learn this song as kids, and it’s supposed to be a patriotic song. It wasn’t until high school that I learned the true meaning of the lyrics. They go: “Yankee Doodle went to town/A-riding on a pony/He stuck a feather in his hat/And called it macaroni.” Apparently, this tune was originally used by the British to make fun of American soldiers during the American Revolutionary War. “Doodle” was a derogatory term that meant “foolish” or “simpleton.” “Macaroni” was a fancy style of Italian dress that was widely imitated among the British in which they would wear a hat with a single feather. By saying “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni,” the British were making fun of Americans who they saw as stupid enough to simply stick a feather in their hat and think themselves ‘fancy.’ It was later used to rally American soldiers, and is now a patriotic song.

It’s funny how songs with such simple lyrics can have such deep political meanings. Both “La cucaracha” and “Yankee Doodle” were written by people with the purpose of making fun of their enemies, but on the surface they seem like simple, fun folk songs.

My Reaction to Connor's Blog: "Blog #5: The Strenuous Life"

What Connor said:

"Out of all the readings we have done this semester, maybe even the whole year, I found this reading the most interesting. With this speech being full of inspirational quotes and phrases, I couldn't help but feel empowered. After reading this I can see why so many people like Theodore Roosevelt. However, there is no point in his speech where he mentions to dare these mighty deeds with well thought out plans. The foremost attitude I got from this reading was something like "go off half-cocked and hope for the best..." This strategy, while when successful is very impressive, is extremely ineffective and not the best way to live one's life. For example, if we relate this to the movie "Viva Zapata", we will see where Emiliano Zapata's downfall occurred. Right at the end, when Zapata had all he needed in his life, he decided to take an uncalculated risk, which was to collect ammo from a, supposedly, turned national soldier. This situation was clearly a trap, and even though they would have benefited from the ammo they would receive, it still wasn't worth Emiliano dieing over it, and that's exactly what happened. The point here is that, yes, it is much better to live a life full of triumphs, speckled with dots of failure, than it is to "live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat". This, however, does not mean one should forsake common sense and reason and act solely on impulse. And as we saw in Zapata's case, his failure resulted in his death. Now I'm not saying that Roosevelt was wrong here, I mean his goal was to motivate the American people, which this speech should have done that quite well. The strenuous life sounds hard, but full of great successes, so why wouldn't anyone want to live like that?! All I'm saying is if one is going to live a life on the edge, remember to have a safety net below in case you fall!"


What I said:

"I really liked reading "The Strenuous Life," too, and your thoughts here are really interesting. When I read it, I didn't get the sense that Roosevelt was encouraging people to "half-cock" everything they do, but what you said makes sense. He really was motivating people to strive for a "strenuous life" in everything they do; however, this is not possible. If you struggle and try to tackle difficult tasks all the time, then you will never have time to sit back and make plans that will help increase your likelihood of success. So maybe Roosevelt should have advocated for a “strenuous life” for half of the time—the other half should be spent carefully making plans so that when you do decide to “go big,” you don’t make a huge mistake."

(http://nizielsc.blogspot.com/2014/02/blog-5-strenuous-life-out-of-all.html?showComment=1392428598481#c8954838421515246825)

Blog 6: Emiliano Zapata

Today in class when we were discussing the movie Viva Zapata and discussing how Zapata’s goal was to get the peasants’ land back from the elite large landowners, someone said “He’s just like Robin Hood! He steals from the rich and gives to the needy!” I couldn’t help but get this song from Shrek struck in my head, so I thought I’d share it with y'all.

Anyway, what really got me thinking today was the discussion about how Zapata relates to 1950s politics in the United States. During the 1950s, the U.S. was involved in the Cold War, and the Red Scare was going on at home. The question that really interested me was: is Zapata supposed to represent communism in the film? And if he is, then what was the filmmakers’ message about communism? First, I don’t think that Zapata is supposed to completely represent communism. Yes, his goals kind of paralleled those of communism—he wanted to redistribute land among the peasants that was under the control of rich, powerful elites. However, unlike communists who want to confiscate all land from the rich and equally distribute it among everyone, Zapata merely wanted to regain control of the land that had actually belonged to the peasants before it was seized from them. I like what Lucas said in our discussion, too: maybe Zapata was sort of supposed to represent communism or at least parallel it, but the point that the filmmakers were trying to make was that Americans were getting over-paranoid about communism and freaking out over a cause that could actually be considered noble. I’m not saying that I believe in communism, but throughout Viva Zapata the viewer can’t help but sympathize with the peasants, whose plight is similar to poor people all over the world who have so little, and are therefore willing to embrace a communist system that promises them so much.

Whatever message the filmmakers were trying to portray, I still enjoyed this movie. I’m not going to lie, at the part when Zapata was president for basically a day and he was about to write down the name of the defiant peasant he had just encountered, I was screaming at my laptop: “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Gaa you’ve turned into Díaz!!!” There were also many humorous moments throughout the film that I appreciated, and overall I liked this movie.

My Reaction to Elena's Blog: "Blog #5- Education in the United States"

I totally get what you said about standardized courses. Last year I took AP Chemistry, and the teacher admitted that the goal of the class was to prepare us to do well on the AP exam. His strategies for teaching the class were then based off this. It’s kind of sad that the purpose of that class was to do well on a test, rather than simply learn chemistry. I learned a lot in that class, but I’ve forgotten most of it since I took the exam. It really did feel like we memorized stuff just in order to “spill it all out on a test.”

I think that this problem with learning is related to what Ken Bain wrote about in What the Best College Students Do. Sometimes, schooling requires you to take a “surface” approach to learning, where you simply memorize stuff in order to do well on a test. What students should try to do is learn “deeply,” where you think critically and take away some deep understanding of a subject that you can use later in your life. I like that we have the opportunity to do that a lot in the Honors College; in this class we have discussion questions, blogs, and essays in which we can develop our thoughts and develop a more solid, deep understanding of the topics about which we write.

(http://elenalatinamerica.blogspot.com/2014/02/blog-5-education-in-united-states.html?showComment=1391906077794#!/2014/02/blog-5-education-in-united-states.html)

Blog 5: Sarmiento v. Martí

I’m not quite sure if this blog entry is due Monday or next Friday, but since I just printed the final draft of my paper (woohoo!), I decided to write this so that I could check one more thing off my list!

I really enjoyed the debate that we had on Wednesday. It was a great way to summarize the differences between Sarmiento and Martí’s ideas. It was sort of funny when we read and then discussed Martí’s “Our America,” because almost for the past month, we have been discussing the liberal ideologies of elites. Many elites in nineteenth century Latin America wanted to Europeanize, or in other words, to model their nations after Europe and the United States. Then all of a sudden, we read Martí’s essay, which basically said the opposite. There was no civilization versus barbarism, but rather “false erudition” versus the natural man. The people whom Sarmiento had previously called “barbaric” and obstacles to progress, the indigenous people and people of the countryside, now were to have crucial roles in Martí’s America. These “natural men” knew their country and its people and therefore knew what the nation needed, and so they must be an important part of the governing process. On the other hand, learned people who had studied United States and European governments did not know what their countries needed. According to Martí, European and United States forms of government would not suit Latin America, because Latin America needed governments that suited their unique needs; they couldn’t simply adopt other forms of government—they had to perhaps choose a model and then adapt it to fit their needs.

Thus, there are some considerable differences between Sarmiento and Martí’s ideas. I would say that I agree more with Martí. Just because one model of government works well for one country, doesn’t mean that it will work well for others. Every country has unique circumstances, and must be able to adapt to them. “Natural men” are needed to govern a country, not educated people who supposedly have studied governments but don’t know anything about their native nation.

My Reaction to Gabbie's Blog: "Blog 4"

What Gabbie said:

"For anyone who knows me, they know I love The Great Gatsby. first off I think the book is very good and I think the movie is even better. anywho, with that in mind, while I was reading the part in Cecilia Valdes about the party hosted by Mercedes, I found a lot of similarities between that party and the party that Gatsby hosts in F. Scott Fitzgeralds book. First off, I found similarities between the party guests. In the Great Gatsby, the guests are all kinds of people, different people from everywhere. some are poor and some are rich; some are famous, others are school boys. However, no one has an invitation. Nick Carroway seems to be the only one who received an invite and no one really seems to care whether or not people had been invited. In Cecilia Valdes, the only people invited seem to be the band, Cecilia and her friend, Leonardo, and Cantalapiedra. aside from that, people just start showing up. Similar to the Great Gatsby, the people who show up are from all different classes. there are whites and mulattos and blacks all there and, though they don't really seem to interact, they are still all in the same place and for the same reason.

Another similarity, I found, is between Cecilia and Daisy. Daisy is described as admired by all, and Gatsby specifically has these parties hoping that, someday, she will show up. Daisy is told to be a very beautiful woman who, upon arriving, is basically the center of the party. she is always accompanied by someone, whether it be Tom Buchanon, Gatsby, or Nick. She has boys falling for her left and right, though she is married to Tome Buchanon. Cecilia is very similar. She is very beautiful and dressed very well when she shows up to Mercedes Party. She is also always next to someone, this person being Nemesia at Mercedes party. She has boys falling all over her, particularly Pimienta and Leonardo. Whatever she does, everyone else wants to do. if she is dancing, everyone follows, when she sits down, everyone assumes that its time to eat and sits with her. she didn't want to leave the dancing early because she didn't want people to assume that she got tired and had to sit down, because that obviously is very terrible to do and you mustn't do that at a party (sorry guys, that was my touch of sarcasm for the blog).

However, with this comparison in mind, I found a lot of differences. The overall messages of the books are completely different. In Gatsby, I find the overall message to be not to live in the past, you have to get past the past (I'm funny sometimes) and move on. But in Cecilia Valdes, the purpose of the story to show the differences between the social classes in Cuba and how they interact. In Gatsby, Jay Gatsby throws all these parties in the hopes that Daisy may arrive some day so they can fall in love. in Cecilia Valdes, it is Mercedes "saint's day" or birthday, so that is the purpose of her party. Also, in the Great Gatsby, almost everyone was not invited to his party. In Cecilia Valdes, it was split mostly in half between those who were invited and those who were not.

Overall, when I was reading chapters 4-6, I was reminded greatly of the Great Gatsby. But I am not saying they are the exact same thing. I just thought the similarities were pretty cool and interesting how really the definition of a "party" and "the popular kids" is not really different over the years."
(http://redpathg.blogspot.com/2014/01/blog-4.html?showComment=1391357102244#c2815929674081504728)


My response:

"First off, I would have to disagree with you. I love The Great Gatsby, too, but I liked the book better than the movie. ;) Anyway, I love all the connections you’ve found! I think you could go further and compare Cecilia to Gatsby himself. Both strive to be seen as part of the upper class, but they’re not: Cecilia, because she is a mulatto, and Gatsby, because he is “new” money, not “old.” Also, both attract a lot of gossip: everyone gossips about Gatsby and where they think he came from, how he got his money, and why he throws extravagant parties every weekend; and people gossip about Cecilia and who they think her parents are."