Maureen Hanes

Motorcycle Diaries

How are disparities in medical care portrayed throughout The Motorcycle Diaries?

Economic inequality is an important theme throughout Guevara’s memoir, and because of his medical background, these inequalities are often shown through disparities in the medical care that people he comes upon can access. While this was a reoccurring theme throughout the book, one instance that was particularly enlightening was Guevara’s encounter with a woman in Chile with asthma on pg. 70. Guevara describes how the woman was also struggling with a heart condition and until recently had been forced to work as a waitress in order for her to try and scrape by. In seeing her misery, Guevara is struck by just how little he can do in that moment to help her, even with his medical training. He declares that those in power should spend much less time “publicizing their own virtues” and more money “funding socially useful works,” (pg. 70-71). While he is able to give her some advice and a few pills, he is not able to help her any further and must leave her in her unsanitary room with her family who seems to view her only as a burden. Later in the book, when Guevara is struggling with asthma himself, he is able to access much better treatment, both because of his and Alberto’s knowledge of medicine and because he can afford to. For example, on pg. 160, he describes how he was able to purchase a new French inhaler to treat his asthma. While much of the book focuses on medical disparities in relation to leprosy, I found this comparison particularly interesting because it highlighted Guevara’s privilege compared to many of the people he met on his journey.

Azuela

How do the male and female characters treat Camila differently from each other throughout the novel?

The men in The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela primarily treat Camila as an object that can be one, discarded, or traded. From the very first time Demetrio Macias met Camila on page 17 of the novel, he wanted to have her, but when he made an advance, he scared her away and was told by the other men that he would have to break her in first. Even though Luis Cervantes does not like Camila, he also treats her as an object that can be bartered in order to make him better off. Towards the end of the novel, he offers to go back for Camila in exchange for a gold watch from Macias (p. 93). Cervantes tricks her into thinking that he has come back for her, and then takes her back to Macias, betraying her trust.

While the other female characters in the novel do not objectify Camila in the same way, they still treat her like she is ignorant and foolish for her choices and feelings towards the men. War Paint, Maria Antonia, and Senora Agapita all treat Camila with kindness at first, but then turn on her when she makes choices that they would not have made. Towards the beginning of the novel, for example, Senora Agapita covers for Camila when she chooses not to attend the dance, but when she is still heartbroken in the morning yells at her to get on with her life (p. 47). In the same passage, when Maria Antonia finds her crying, she beats Camila to try and rid her of bad spirits and her lovesickness (p. 47). At the end of the novel, War Paint tries first to protect Camila and makes plans for her to return home, but when Camila chooses to stay and begins to fall for Macias, War Paint turns on her, becoming increasingly coldhearted until she ends up killing her to spite Macias on page 108.

These attitudes towards Camila stem from her low position as an unmarried girl during this period. While the older women in the novel might sympathize with her somewhat at first, they also are influenced by the misogynistic society that treats young women as objects without their own real thoughts or opinions. Her presence in the novel is also not to provide her with her own story arc but rather to use her to further the story arcs of both Macias and War Paint, giving her character a low status within the mostly male-centered plot.

Narrowed Research Post: Gender and Argentina’s Dirty War

My research question is: How did gendered violence in Argentina’s Dirty War lead to the development of the female-led Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement, and how has gender affected the way this movement has been perceived? This research is significant because the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is still an active human rights and peace organization today, continuing to work on issues of justice and family reunification left over from the Dirty War. The family reunification issue is especially tied to gender-based violence during the conflict, so investigating this violence is important for understanding the origins of the Mothers’ movement and their continued activism today. I also hope to investigate how this female-led movement has been perceived by different groups such as the Argentine government, society, or the international community over time and how that has affected their work.

Primary Source:

Sternbach, Nancy Saporta, Zelia Brizeno, and Hebe de Bonafini. “Interview with Hebe De Bonafini: President of Las Madres De Plaza De Mayo.” Feminist Teacher 3, no. 1 (1987): 16–21.

Secondary Sources:

Actis Munú, Cristina Aldini, Liliana Gardella, Miriam Lewin, and Elisa Tokar. That Inferno: Conversations of Five Women Survivors of an Argentine Torture Camp. Translated by Gretta Siebentritt. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.

Bonner, Michelle D. Sustaining Human Rights: Women and Argentine Human Rights Organizations. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.

Bouvard, Marguerite Guzman. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo. Lanham, MD: SR Books, 1994.

Burucua, Constanza. Confronting the “Dirty War” in Argentine Cinema, 1983-1993: Memory and Gender in Historical Representations. Suffolk, UK: Woodbridge, 2009.

Student Research: Gender and Argentina’s Dirty War

I would like to research the role that gender played in the Argentine Dirty War, both in terms of gender-based violence but also in terms of the peace movements led by women. When taking Peace Studies last year, I learned briefly about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and I would like to research this movement further. I think it would be interesting to research how the government and wider society has viewed this movement over time and what role gender played in these perceptions. I would also like to frame this within the larger context of how the role of gender in the Dirty War has been viewed over time. I think that this is both a very interesting and important question that is very relevant to understanding Latin America, especially because the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are still actively protesting today.

Class Notes: February 3, 2020

We spent Monday’s class participating in a digital public history workshop with Megan Smeznik to help us learn how to format and post our timeline entries. Before we began the workshop however, Professor Holt gave some overall feedback on our timeline draft entries. Her two main points of feedback were: 1) to use clear evidence within the entries and 2) to make sure that the entries do not have too much of a conversational tone or use first-person language. Megan then walked everyone through the basics of posting on our COW Latin America page and answered students’ questions.

Here are some basic instructions and tips on how to post an entry:

Log in to VOICES
Go to our COW Latin America site
Go to the dashboard and click on the section for archive items
Once here, you can begin to post an entry as a document
1. This site uses a block editor, so you can add blocks of text anytime you want to add a new paragraph or heading
  1. To add a section for a works cited list, just add another paragraph
    1. Within your works cited, make sure that all links show up as actual links. In order to do this, highlight the link and hit the button that looks like a chain link
  2. You can add pictures or video to your entry by clicking wherever you would like it to appear and inserting it
    1. If the file is too large, you can always just add a link to the original source instead. Videos should not be an issue, however, as they will automatically link out to YouTube.
    2. When inserting a picture, make sure to add a caption as well as a short description for alt text so that our page can be as accessible as possible
  3. For each entry you also much fill out the following sections:
    1. “Cite as” – First Last name (optional), “Page Title,” COW Latin America, page permalink.
      1. The permalink can be found on the sidebar on the right side of the page
      2. If you do not want your name to be associated with your entry, just leave it off the citation
    2. “Creator” – this is the creator of the primary source
      1. If there isn’t a creator, just put Unknown
      2. If you are using something like a YouTube video, include the name of the person who uploaded the video and if possible and appropriate, include both their real name and YouTube name
    3. Check the appropriate boxes for Event, Country, and Date
      1. Put the best information you have about your source for the date, even if it is not exact
    4. Check keywords that apply to your source in the editor section in the righthand sidebar of the page
      1. If there is not a keyword that you think matches your entry, reach out to Professor Holt
    5. Choose a thumbnail image
      1. This can be the image of your source or a screenshot from a video you are using
  4. Once you have completed all these sections, hit the “Publish” button at the top of the page

Here are some links to articles that might be interesting:

What is DIVINER?
1. https://ncpr.github.io/diviner-wp-archive-theme/
What is WordPress?
1. https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/what-is-wordpress/
Why is public history important?
1. https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/march-2008/defining-public-history-is-it-possible-is-it-necessary

Questions to consider:

How will your timeline contribute to public history? What is it providing that past resources have not provided?
Why is it important to pick primary sources from diverse writers/creators?
From a student’s perspective, is there anything else that should be added or any changes that could be made to our archive that you think would be beneficial?

Latin America in the News (January 29, 2020)

Although Russian meddling in the U.S. election is a popular topic covered by U.S. media, Russian influence campaigns in other countries and regions are covered less frequently in the mainstream media. However, this recent New York Times article, “As Protests in South America Surged, So Did Russian Trolls on Twitter, U.S. Finds,” sheds light on the extent of Russian social media campaigns in Latin America. The U.S. State Department routinely monitors social media worldwide, especially Twitter, to watch for evidence of malicious activities sponsored by foreign governments with the purpose to influence public opinion. In the case of Latin America, accounts flagged by the State Department as being backed by the Russian government have ramped up efforts to sow dissent and confusion throughout this past fall as protests have erupted across many of the countries in the region. Specifically, most of the tweets are aimed at increasing support for the Maduro government in Venezuela, which is funded in part by Russian oil and backed politically by the Russian government, in states where many people have demanded Maduro’s resignation. The United States along with a coalition of over 50 other states have backed Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader in Venezuela, and have imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime. Therefore, Russian meddling in the region appears to be specifically aimed at disrupting the support and influence in Venezuela and Latin America overall of the U.S. and its allies.

The article went on to provide evidence of the Russian Twitter campaigns beyond just Venezuela, stating that almost 10% of all tweets in Chile supporting the protests last fall came from Twitter accounts flagged by the U.S. State Department as having a “high certainty of being linked to Russia” (Jakes). Furthermore, in Bolivia, in the period before and after President Morales resigned, tweets about Bolivia in the Russian Twitter network surged from about five per day to over a thousand. While these campaigns are not necessarily related to Russian interests in Venezuela, they are still working to increase Russian influence in Latin America by trying to garner support for Russian-backed governments in the region. Besides Twitter, the Spanish-language branches of Russian news organizations such as RT Español and Sputnik Mundo have been accused of spreading “disinformation, conspiracy theories, and in some cases, outright falsehoods” in order to garner support for Russian-backed causes (Jakes).

The Russian foreign minister has denied any government involvement in the Twitter campaigns. Plus, even the general public in Chile was skeptical of how much foreign involvement could be influencing protests after the Chilean government released a report citing foreign actors as playing a “leading role” in inciting protests (Jakes). Furthermore, it is also still unclear how effective these Russian Twitter campaigns have been in changing public opinion to support Russian-backed causes. The State Department was unable to concretely prove that these Twitter accounts were directly backed by the Russian government, instead describing them as “likely linked to the Russian state” (Jakes). Even with the pushback against the State Department’s claims, however, this remains an incredibly important geopolitical issue, highlighting the continued influence of post-Cold War U.S.-Russian relations across the world and the growing prevalence of Russian meddling in states’ internal affairs through the use of social media.

This article does a good job of showing Latin America not as a region apart from the rest of the world but as one intricately connected. Additionally, it shows just how much influence the major powers still have or try to have in the region even though we are theoretically living in a post-colonial, post-Cold War society. This article does still fall into the trope of depicting Latin American states as unstable and susceptible to outside control, but this is necessary to provide the background knowledge on why Russian influence campaigns are suddenly so abundant in the region.

This also relates to the themes we’ve been discussing in the class. Chasteen discusses in Ch. 5 how, since the end of the independence movements in Latin America, governments in the area have often been unstable and tend to be overturned quickly, which is still continuing to occur today. This article also ties back into the major themes of nationalism versus liberalism in Latin American politics. There has been conflict since the end of colonization about whether countries should strive for the support of outside actors like the U.S. and other world powers or remain focused internally for growth and support. The effect of these two ideologies can still be seen in the way that countries like Venezuela have partnered closely with Russia while others are trying to avoid external influence on national politics.

The article by Jeifets, Khadorich, and Leksyutina helps to further explain why Russia is working so hard to garner Latin American support right now. The authors explain how, after the West imposed sanctions on Russia for their actions in Ukraine, Russia has focused heavily on finding new trade opportunities outside of Europe. Of relations with Latin American states, Russian-Venezuelan relations have historically been the strongest due to their heavy reliance on oil as a key export. In return for diplomatic support for Russian foreign policy with Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia, Russia has also supported and helped fund the Venezuelan military. With the global dip in oil prices, however, and the continued rise of China in Latin America, Russia appears to be starting to lose its influence in Venezuela and in Latin America as a whole, leading towards its new strategy of social media meddling.

References:

Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood & Fire: a Concise History of Latin America. 4th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Jakes, Lara. “As Protests in South America Surged, So Did Russian Trolls on Twitter, U.S. Finds.” The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/us/politics/south-america-russian-twitter.html?searchResultPosition=2

Jeifets, Victor, et al. “Russia and Latin America: Renewal versus Continuity.” Portuguese Journal of Science, vol. 17, no. 2, 2018, pp. 213–228., http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=132485541&S=R&D=aph&EbscoContent=dGJyMMvl7ESeqLU4yNfsOLCmsEieqLFSsK64SrCWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGqsEyxqbNRuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA.