Research Topic

1:The inequality in the income in Latin America  

The situation of inequality is pretty much the worst in the world. High-income people don’t want to pay for the tax and are not willing to help with the infrastructure development like the hospitals, universities and cultural life. Also, the drug-related crime and governmental corruptions are the reason for some of the higher income people to lose faith in their country.This is a ferocious cycle. If the government does not try to revolutionize their inner system, the Latin American would go on deteriorating. We have to know that  the latin American countries used to be the fastest growing economy, but now they are they are greatly undermined by the government corruption and drug related issues.

For this topic, I want to focus on the reasons the richest people don’t want to invest in their home country, to help with the economic improvement.

2:Drug Cartel in Latin America.

The reason I am interesting in this is because the drug is the serious problems across the latin America. The countries like Columbia and Peru are the major producer of cocaine and the most of the drug are exported to the North America and Europe. It is said that Mexican and Colombian generate a total of $18 to $39 billion dollars per year. And along with the profits, conflicts between major drug cartel and the crime conducted by drug cartels are always major issues in those areas. For instance, Latin America and the Caribbean has the world’s highest crime rates, with murder reaching 32.6 per 100,000 of population in 2008. And the conflicts increase as the government start to declare war on the drug cartel. For instance violence has surged in Mexico since 2006 when Mexican President Felipe intensified the Mexican Drug War.

A fully operational submarine built for the primary purpose of transporting multi-ton quantities of cocaine located near a tributary close to the Ecuador/Colombia border that was seized by the Ecuador Anti-Narcotics Police Forces and Ecuador Military authorities with the assistance of the DEA.

And especially, I want to focus on the period when Escobar became the major drug cartel in      Columbia and how it affects theColumbia people’s life.

Continuing the reading of  “a land so strange”, the author, Resédenz, this time presents us the story of those four survivors vastly changed status as they set themselves as the medicine men. Reading through the whole chapter, it’s all full of how the Indian people treated them as higher authority and became their company for the exploration. The Indian people gave whatever they need: “shelter, food, and gifts to the four men in exchange for access o their healing power”. (Reséndez,190). In addition, they would set foot into the tribe’s enemy territory for the sake of those four noble men. In making this comment, the writer urged us to believe that those Indians didn’t enslave those Europeans. Not only because they hadn’t had the ideology of slavery, but also because of their kind-hearted and honest personalities. If the Indians took them as the slave, those four survivors wouldn’t gain such status. The definition of “slavery” is that slaves ought to perform whatever the slavers told them to do and they were unable to disengage in such order. Clearly, the four survivors are thought to be the “son of the god” by the Indians, which directly contradict to the ideas that the europeans were being enslaved that mentioned in the previous chapter. Thus, In my opinion, the natives were very kind and friendly to the castaways before the European conquistadors reached the New World.

Not only the Natives treated them like “son of the god”, the four “medicine men” also rewarded the Indian people and gained benefits mutually.  According to Reséndez, once those four noble men received the presents from one tribe, they would give the rest to their followers.(193) The essence of the argument is that those four castaways are also grateful for the efforts those Indians spared and the kindness that Indians presented to the four. In addition, as the writer puts it, “other christians has already reached these remote lands and were casing so much harm to the natives”. Basically, Reséndez is implying that those four castaways developed the friendship with the natives and decided to help those Indians when they heard the Indians are brutally killed by the European conquistadors. This is a sign of the rationality overcoming the sensibility. It is true that the four castaways were indeed up in the air, however, instead of galloping to the Conquistadors, they took the Indians interest before the their sense of belonging to the Europeans. Additionally,  from my perspective of view, the impulse of helping the Indians is due to their belief in God. The God’s will is rooted inside every angle of their life. Everything is under the supervision of the God. The four deserted people knew that it is a God’s will to testify if they could stand the test.  It is their decision to choose whether they should lounge to the side of the Europeans or staying and helping by the Indian side. At last, they chose the later one.

In the book “a land so strange”, the writer Reséndez recounts the story of the last and only four survivors meeting with the native Americans and being enslaved by those natives after they are found out to be useless in certain ways. As soon as those who took the expedition hit by the hurricane and being hurled onto the beach, the native Indian found them and treated them with effort and even gave whatever they need. Despite some of the ventures being skeptical about the kindness of the Indian, the majority people followed. Unfortunately, they were found to be useless to the Indians. The reason that the Indian acted kindly to them, in my opinion, is because of fact that they thought, with the armory of those explorers and the people, the natives could take advantage of them and eventually survive some harsh winter situations. Several years later, after being slaved for a great deal of time, Cabeza de Vaca, with the miracle, become the trader between the tribes when in the times of war. His experience as the accounting personnel before helped him to be the best option for the job. Coincidentally, this endows them a chance for the future reunion. Indeed, they succeeded in reunion and, fortunately, enjoyed a  time of free men and authority.

I agree that even in the time of 600 years ago, people started to have the idea that there should be a person who should does a job of selling, exchanging and trading between individuals, groups, and tribes when in the times of war. Cabeza de Vaca, as a trader, enjoyed being freeman and people’s respect that he couldn’t possibly have when he was being enslaved by the native Indians. This scenario reminds of the high demand of the trader in the present world. Being more globalized the world means the increase in the exchange of goods. That is why people all over the world are studying business and economics and hopefully, they could eventually become the traders. Those who choose to study the business in college not only because of the money but also because of the feeling of higher authority over others and great self-governing ability. In addition, I especially like those four survivors explaining everything based on the belief as a Christian. When they are hit by the hurricane, they considered it as God’s will. Then, when those four survivors finally gained their identities as free men, they thanked God and thought it the God’s will. I am wondered to see how the religion rooted into people’s minds. And I could tell the extent they respect their religion. However, when we looked into the context of that time, we can see the reason why. The experience of being a trader is quite interesting, and it indeed shows people what is like to do the business in 15th century.

Critique over “Estevanico” in Wikipedia.

The wikipedia page for Estevanico is informative as well as well-illustrated, though, some parts of the illustration may seem a little imprecise.

When I first took a glance at the wikipedia page for Estevanico, I was astounded to see there is only little information about the one of the four survivors of the expedition compared to other surviving expeditioners in the wiki page. However, when I dig through the page and other materials concerning about other survivors, I understand why. Estabanico was a slave to a Spanish noble when he conduced the expedition.That means it was actually meaningless for the people at that time to write a descriptive illustration of his life and his experience on the voyage. Therefore, I understand why there is literally nothing about him compared to lengthy description of ÁLVAR. Even the book “a land so strange”, which is considered an important book to give great insights and a large amount of information to the readers about the expedition, only have one sentence for him, “only four surviveD Cabeza de Vaca, two other Spaniards, and Estebanico. No wonder why there is little introduction about him in the wiki-page.

The wikipedia, indeed, gives a relatively informative description about Estebanico. It has four sections regarding the black slave “Estebanico”, from early life to its representation in other media. The wikipedia gives us brief summary of the life of Estabanico, and a lot of information for Estabanico regarding his identity as the American Explorer. It serves to demonstrate his voyage life as the explorer. In my opinion, the wikipedia editors have done a great deal to try to enrich the information for Estabanico. But, in debating whether he was the first black African to set foot on the continent of America, the editor only says that “some books claim him to be the first to land in U.S”, while he gives us the link of the black African who has completed the expedition before Estabanico. The editor does not provide us with which books are saying Estabanico was the first one. In my opinion, this could be inferred as not writing the information in a neutral stance or probably the editor is writing based on facts. The way the editor writing the article about Estabanico on wikipedia probably contradicts the basic idea that all information on Wikipedia should be based on facts and on a neutral standpoint.

Except for some little mistakes, the passage still succeed in giving us a well-demonstrated introduction.

In the introduction to the book” a land so strange”, the writer Andres tells the readers the importance of the story of Cabeza de Vaca who, with other three people, two Spaniards and one Estebanico, has done a great oddesey. The story is of importance because of the fact that it gives the people a brand new persecutive of how the Spanish implement the humane colonization on the native Indian people. And it could be served as a genuine historical source. Though, the voyage was popular and well-known in America and Europe hundreds of years ago, it does lose its reputation since then. The reason for declining fame is due to the reason that there is no context for people to understand and to read like a fiction. Indeed, it is of great importance and the writer is trying to bring it back to what the voyage was like hundreds of years ago. 

The introduction is quite engaging and important. The story of oddseyy could offer a brand new insight and ideas into what it was like in 16th century, instead of being forgotten and causing modest impact. When I finished the reading, I could literally feel the urgency to read the following chapters and start to explore the 16th century world.

In the introduction to the book “creolization”, the writer David discussed the meaning of the creolization and how it evolves from the idea of Acculturation, a theory that “denied the possibility of any African influences surviving the Middle Passage”. That is to say, the theory of the acculturation is that the culture of the Africa is assimilated on the encountering with the European and inferior one just submits to the “superior” one. The idea of acculturation is somewhat prejudiced because of the fact it does not admit the room for “acculturated Africans”. However the following scholars propose a lot of theories. But, they are all biased in someways . In other words, they could not get away from the “donor culture” . Then, in 1976, two scholars assert that there is not a thing called “donor culture” and nothing could transfer between two culture. the following century, we have lots of scholars proposing different views, but they all particularly have some flaws.

The concept of the “Creolization” effectively explains the clashing views about whether there’s a donor culture or we need to excise all the possibilities. Creolization is a syncretic expression in which the pressure to change stimulates the willingness of people to change. And the extent of culture making changes depends on the loyalty toward the original culture. Also the rate of the Creolization is close linked to the material abundance which means that people tend to cliche to their original culture if the material is abundant.

Creolization literally shows in every aspect of the human life, including architecture, agriculture, cooking, cartography, medicine, religion, and etc. In addition, Creolization shows different stages at different time.

I found this theory quite inclusive and true. It is very illustrative and straightforward in defining the cultural interchange and culturally mutual learning. Take the U.S as an example, as the melting pot for all people from different countries with different cultures, the U.S has done a lot to provide an inclusive environment to every one. Though, some critics may contend that the melting pot is actually more like a “salad”, I still believe U.S has done much better than other countries, like my motherland, China. In the U.S, we could see people of different colors and of different beliefs. The each individual displays their own unique culture and special influence upon the culture of the U.S. Each individual with different background provides the united states the power to become the world’s leader.

In the article “only connect”, the writer William Cronon argues that the meaning of a liberal education is distorted and he gives his own understanding of the liberal arts education to the viewers. First, in the perspective of a historian, Mr. Cronon talks about how the word “liberal”comes from Latin and the actual meaning of the word “liberal” both in the ancient greek and in the Old English. This comparison gives me a view of how the people in the ancient age define the word “liberal” and It helps me to have a clear understanding of what the author actually tries to do. Then, in order to reinforce his stance, he further blames on the behavior of actually listing the classes which classes the students should take in order to become liberate. The author considers the listing of classes a direct mislead for students to become liberated people. With the example of an institution that tries to states as the “objects of the liberal education”, the author continually dismissed the idea of listing what should be done in order to achieve the goal of liberation. However, surprisingly, he, in the end, ended gives us a list of what he calls as ten essential personalities that shows a person is liberated .

Personally, there are some parts that I do find trustworthy. For example, when he talks about how world “liberal” relates the ancient greek word “eleutheros”, how it originates from the latin and how it is akin to the old english word leoden. It does give me a clear view of how to define the word “liberal”. But, when he considers the institutions are misleading students into the wrong road by give them a list of what should be done in order to become liberated, I totally disagrees with him. The liberal arts education in the U.S ( except for those who have one hundred percent bogus liberal arts education) is what drives me ten thousand miles away from China to purse my future study in U.S . Our higher education in China is distorted. It is extremely weird that students spend day and night in the high school, receiving force-feed education and working very diligently in order to receive a satisfying grade in the university entrance examination. But once when they do and successfully go to the universities, they feel like they are freed and there’s no need for hard working. Even those institutions are in nod with what the students think. As long as they do not fail that class, they can literally do go the class every time. I think It is not an environment that nurtures the future pillar of the state, but the parasitic disease for the whole society. Though, the students are physically liberated, they’ll never be mentally liberated. The U.S higher education system, in my own point of view, is the world first class educational system. Especially for those who study in the college, as long as they completed the so called “misleading” list that the college provides them, becoming the liberated is only a step away. I do not mean to directly argue against the writer and indeed the personalities he gave us are extremely persuasive. But, in my opinion, as long as there is no any sign of how to implement what he believes into reality, I will always be a strong of supporter of the liberal arts education.

The liberal arts education in the U.S is the true liberal education.