It is clear after reading the article that the Virgin of Carmen festival plays an incredibly important role in community identity for the Cabaneños. For Cabaneños abroad, the funding, planning, participation in, and celebration of the Virgin of Carmen festival allows them to form and strengthen their identities as part of the Cabanaconde community. For the Cabaneños in Cabanaconde, the participation in and celebration of the Virgin of Carmen festival allows them to commemorate the history and culture of their community. Large religious celebrations and rituals all tend to help strengthen a person’s identity in relation to their community, and I would argue that the Virgin of Carmen festival is no exception. Much like how a person’s participation in Easter or Christmas might help them form and strengthen their own identity and the identity of the Christian community that they are a part of, the Virgin of Carmen festival helps Cabaneños everywhere to celebrate and preserve their culture while also strengthening personal and communal identities. This is perhaps best shown through this quote: “In effect, the fiesta has become an identity emblem that migrants can draw on to express their sense of belonging and that serves as a point of reference with which Cabanenos living elsewhere distinguish themselves from migrants from other regions”.

In the article, the author argues that the rise of transnational migration has indeed changed the manner in which the festival is celebrated. Paerregaard states that “the village’s migrant population is thus gradually taking over Cabanaconde’s traditional rituals and religious life world”. Due to the fact that transnational migrants in places like the US have more connections and networks to draw from and access to more money, they have the ability to affect the entire community. When you apply this to the Virgin of Carmen festival, you can see how the migrants have changed the manner in which it is celebrated. What was once a religious ritual has now become “an event supported by an urban consumption lifestyle”. In addition, it would appear as though many of the inhabitants of the village are a bit bothered by the fact that the migrants have “taken over” the festival. Although the celebration promotes unity among Cabaneños everywhere, the rise of transnational migration has created competition between migrants and villagers.

This was a long article with lots of information, so I will try to sum it up as best I can. Dr. Esperanza Cerón, head of the organization Educar Consumidores, was working to promote a tax on sugary drinks that many experts believe to be a cause of obesity in Colombia and globally. She and her organization raised money and awareness of the issue, all the while supporting the installation of a 20% tax on sugary drinks. They even created a television ad that alerted the citizens of Colombia of the connection between sugary drinks and obesity and diabetes. As a result of Dr. Cerón’s actions in support of the tax, she and her colleagues were harassed, and the sugar drink industry, led by a company called Postobón, worked to shut her work down. Cerón and her colleagues found that their computers and phones began operating in a strange manner, and men were seen taking pictures of the organization’s office. Cerón was even followed while driving and approached in public, being told to be silent and to stop what she was doing. She no longer drives alone.

Postobón sent a complaint to the government, and soon after Dr. Cerón’s ad was taken off the air. What’s more, she and her organization were no longer allowed to publicly discuss the health risks of sugar, effectively silencing her and Educar Consumidores. Though Cerón reported the harassment she and her colleagues faced to authorities, federal prosecutors declined to investigate. However, after being silenced, Cerón wrote a blog post about the issue. RCN Televisión, the biggest media company in Colombia, claimed intellectual property theft due to the content of her blog post, so she took it down, but RCN sent a complaint to federal prosecutors, who ironically did not decline to investigate this time. She faces a possible fine of $300,000.

Eventually, the Constitutional Court of Colombia overturned the decision from the government agency that silenced Educar Consumidores. However, this happened after the Colombian Congress had voted against the tax that Cerón was working to promote.

This article portrays Latin Americans in an interesting way. The majority of Colombians supported the tax, yet when people tried to speak out and support it, the government and the soda industry shut them down. Thus I think this article is a good representation of the perpetual struggle against corruption in Latin America. I think it reflects positively on Latin American citizens, but negatively on the governments they live under. To what extent Latin Americans are to blame for their corrupt governments is a topic of much debate, and the US often receives a large portion of the blame. However, I think ultimately the article shows that Latin Americans are an intelligent and advanced group of people who could truly prosper if political corruption, weak economies, and political instability weren’t such large issues. This article did a good job of revealing how much power and control the large companies have over the Colombian government, which negatively effects Colombian citizens in the long run, particularly in this case with regards to their health.

I would recommend that anyone interested in what I’ve written about here go check out the article I wrote about, as it goes a lot more in depths than I could in this blog post.

My peer reviewer mentioned a few things about my sources which I think are incredibly important. Dr. Holt noted that two of my sources are not very scholarly though they have interesting information. My peer reviewer pointed out that my sources may be biased in some respects so I have to make sure to leave that out of my article, and I have to make sure I represent all viewpoints. Also, because my peer reviewer admitted that she didn’t know much about the DSL, I think it will be important for me to make sure the people reading my article know what I am talking about. I think that if I make sure my introductory paragraph is solid, readers will understand what I’m talking about, so I’ll be sure to make my introductory paragraph at the beginning of the article informative and easy to understand. Lastly, my peer reviewer noted that because I am working on a brand new article as opposed to a preexisting one, I need to be sure to stay on topic, because I have so much freedom with what I can write. I will be sure to keep this in mind as I write my article. I found my peer reviewers comments to be beneficial and practical.

In this chapter, Rivera-Rideau argues that the racialization of reggaetón creates negative stereotypes that apply to all people of Latin American descent. The author seems to be incredibly frustrated with the way American media represents reggaetón and Latin Americans in general as well as hip hop and African Americans in general. The term “Hurban”, a combination of Hispanic and urban, is often used to describe the audience of reggaetón. However, the author argues that the association of reggaetón with urban areas is problematic. This is because in American media urban areas are typically depicted as being unsafe areas of crime, drugs, and violence. In terms of race, categorizing the music as “urban” marks it as being connected to Latin American and African American culture, which thus allows people to stereotype these cultures as being naturally violent and criminal. Additionally, the author argues that the term hurban marks reggaetón as a Hispanic only music genre, which completely ignores the African disaporatic roots of the music. The American media views reggaetón as being not quite black, which the author claims is bad because it has black roots but also is not a completely black genre. It is difficult to understand what the author is finding a problem with, because to claim that reggaetón is black music would be to ignore all of its non-black roots, but regardless the author finds fault with calling reggaetón “not quite black”.

In terms of class, the author argues that because reggaeton is described as being urban, and because the words “urban” and “inner-city” are associated with blacks, Latinos, violence, and crime, reggaeton is stereotyped as being “lower-class” as are black people, Latinos, hip-hop, and urban areas. The classification of the genre based on class and race force a connection between the two, and thus most American media coverage of urban areas overlooks the racist policies that created the economic issues in the urban areas and instead the blame is put on the black and Latino communities.

Finally, the author seems to argue that reggaeton and hip-hop are wrongly depicted in the American media as being inherently misogynistic music genres. The author argues that the media depicts Latin American women (as well as Latin Americans in general) as being hypersexualized, promiscuous party people, which are negative stereotypes that affect Latin Americans as a whole. “Urban” men are typically depicted as violent thugs, and thus as a result, those who perform and create reggaeton are also considered violent thugs at times.

These negative stereotypes of the music genre and the cultures it was born out of prevent the public from truly understanding the diverse roots of the genre and the people that create it.

I may be able to complete my Wikipedia assignment on this article about Sports in the Dominican Republic. In the baseball section there is a lot of good information about the history of baseball in the country. However, I noticed that closer to the end of the baseball section there is a little bit of information about the relations between the US and the Dominican Republic as a result of baseball. I think this information could be built upon or elaborated upon.

One good source might be the information that the MLB has on the history of baseball in the Dominican Republic, found here.  Another article, found here, has more information about why the Dominican Republic produces so many great baseball players. However, the wikipedia article already has a lot of information about the history of baseball in the Dominican Republic. So I think an even better source can be found in this article about the way the MLB treats prospective players from the Dominican Republic.

It would appear as though nobody else has spoken about including the way the MLB treats prospective Dominican players in the article. Lots of parts of the talk page include stuff about other sports, like volleyball. So perhaps this is not the best article to think about working on but I think it could be improved a little bit.