Author Archives: Karina Diaz

Ginetta Calendario – Review

Ginetta Candelario is a Dominican-American sociologist who has studied the foundations of feminism in the Dominican Republic for the past seventeen years. The main point that she emphasized was the difference between North American and Dominican feminists. Dominican women were more concerned with autonomy; having rights to divorce, to own property, and to govern their own bodies. Women in the United States were chiefly concerned with suffrage, but this did not matter to the Dominican feministas whose government “elections” consisted of militia-led coup d’états where a vote would not be of much use. North American women would not reach this level of feminism, which is considered Second Wave feminism, until the 1950’s.

After her presentation, we had a question and answer session about both her presentation and her book, Black Behind the Ears (There is more to the name). This book followed transnational Dominican migrants at three key cities and studied their racial self-identification. Those in Washington D.C. more readily identified with their African ancestry, and accepted their blackness. Those in New York held on to anti-black ideologies, in an attempt to separate themselves from African-Americans and how they were treated in America. Those in Santo Domingo also held on to anti-black, but more specifically, anti-Haitian, ideologies due to years of schooling and customs that supported this philosophy. This relates to class in that we studied the roots of anti-blackness/anti-Haitian ideas. We found them to originally be a way to distance the Dominican Republic from the free and black country of Haiti so that international trade would not be deterred.

Concerning the presentation and dinner, Dr. Candelario was eloquent, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic about her work. Her work has already begun to change my perspective and appreciation of my background and identity. However, during the presentation she seemed to be disorganized in how she would flip back-and-forth between slides. Also, she would provide exorbitant amounts of information to answer questions. Besides that, I identify strongly with Dr. Candelario as a Dominican-American woman who is white passing. As a child, I would fill out my race as black and my ethnicity as Hispanic/Latino on standardized tests. As I grew to understand race and ethnicity, I realized I could not identify as black simply because I did not identify as white. Her work has re-opened my own internal conversation of my identity, and I am grateful.

Ixcanul Film Analysis

This film is about a young, indigenous girl of Mayan descent in Guatemala who is named Maria. She was promised to an older man in marriage to secure the jobs and livelihoods of her parents. She wanted to run away to the United States with a boy named Pepe, who impregnated her before abandoning her. She attempts to ward off snakes, gets bitten, and is rushed to the hospital. The doctors claim that the baby died in the process, but we later come to find that the coffin was filled with a brick and not a corpse. The movie ends with Maria being prepped for another marriage.

This film relates to the unit where we covered indigenaity in Mexico. Due to the language barrier, impoverished state, and lack of formal education, indigenous peoples are taken advantage of. The way in which the hospital took it into its own hands to deliver and give away Maria’s child with no actual consent depicts the lack of rights given to indigenous persons. They are given no agency in their well-being and are wholly dependent upon adhering to systemic inequalities.

This film also shows different aspects of what one most people view as indigenous in practice such as superstitions. Maria and her family participated in offerings to the volcano, not killing the “sacred” snakes in the field, and attempting to ward the snakes off with the scent of Maria’s breast milk. Other stereotypes include alcoholism, manual labor, and hyper sexuality. The machismo attitude that is present in many Latin American countries is also displayed; women work all day farming, cleaning, cooking, and are not paid at all. The men work in the plantation and are paid, then arrive at the house to be waited on by the women in the household. It was interesting to see all these different ideas be portrayed seamlessly through the characters, without anything being explicitly stated.

Another cinematic element that was impactful was the identical opening and closing scenes, where Maria is getting prepped for her arranged marriage. This shows the vicious cycle of poverty experienced by the indigenous; without money, there’s no education. With no education, they do not learn Spanish. With this language barrier lodged in place, there is no way for these people to advocate for themselves. Without advocating and representation, they are stuck poverty. Thus the cycle continues.

As a critique, the movie felt longer than necessary, and probably could have been trimmed down from two hours to one and a half without losing any plot information. Otherwise, this movie was interesting and exciting in the way that unexpected plot twists kept happening.

Black Intellectuals: From Elitist to Activist

Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in 20th Century Brazil is a secondary source written by Paulina L. Alberto. It was published in 2011. Her intended audience is those in academia, to provide more insight to research that came before her and will come after her. This source can be classified as an intellectual history.

In summary, these two chapters cover the emergence of afro-Brazilian papers as activist instead of elitist. Chapter three focuses on the nuances concerned with the Mae Preta statue; white Brazilians saw the black wet-nurse as the obedient slave who suffered in silence, accompanied by a sense of nostalgia for a time when black voices were more easily silenced. Afro-Brazilians saw the white child suckling the black wet-nurse as an analogy to the debt owed to afro-Brazilians. The reparations owed to these wet-nurses for feeding and sustaining the white population at the expense of their own black children. Chapter four talks about racial tensions after Vargas lead a bloodless coup and installed a nationalist government. He promoted Brasilidade (Brazilianess), which was a mix of patriotism, nationalism, and integration of black culture into the mainstream. White Brazilians preferred a melting pot approach, where the remnants of African culture would disintegrate and mesh with the dominant European-based culture in Brazil. Afro-Brazilians preferred a multicultural/salad bowl approach, where pure African customs should remain untouched and celebrated, such as Candomble. Schisms occurred within the black community concerning the following items: socialism vs. fascism, anti- vs. pro-immigrant, westernization vs. pan-Africanism.

A critique I have is in her periodization. She simultaneously flips through time and space: the events are not chronological, and so it gets confusing as to the order in which the events occurred, and at the same time she is changing between Salvador, Rio, and Sao Paulo.
I enjoyed her sources. She used black, immigrant, and white Brazilian newspapers as sources. This truly gives a three-dimensional look into how racial discrimination/inclusivity was viewed amongst these groups.

Questions:
How would you interpret the Mae Preta?
How do you think the schism within the black community concerning methods of integration affected their eventual integration into mainstream society?

Film Analysis 2

This film is about a young and beautiful woman, Eurydice, running away from home because Death kept threatening her. She stayed at her cousin Serafina’s house and there she grew to love Orpheus, a guitar playing, Romeo who was engaged to marry Mira. At Carnaval, Death gets to Eurydice, and Orpheus is heartbroken as he carries her corpse back home. Mira, having found out about Orpheus’ affair, throws stones at him and he falls over a cliff and dies, embraced to his love. This is a French-directed film, based on a Brazilian play, based on a Greek myth. This opens up the film to criticism about the Eurocentric view of Afro-Brazilians.

A clearly Eurocentric point of view the Afro-Brazilian people is how they were depicted as jovial, street vendors who were constantly dancing to and playing music. Even in the opening scene on the boat, everyone was dancing as the ship was docking. This coincides exactly with Freyre’s idea of people of African descent, and how this jovial culture adds to the value of Brazilian culture as a whole. Another critique is how the women were portrayed; they were fiery, sensual beings as depicted by the strange foreplay Serafina partook in and by Mira’s constantly displayed cleavage. Again, Freyre wrote at length about the sensuality and eroticism of the slaves brought over from Africa, and how the Portuguese focused on bringing over beautiful slaves so as to populate the empty lands of Brazil with beautiful, mixed babies. Finally, the way poor people in Brazil were depicted was Eurocentric. These people were wasting what little money they had on Carnaval costumes instead of food. Yes, this does occur in real life, but there are reasons for such “madness”. They are buying into the illusion of that day; at Carnaval you can be anyone, even the King, for a day and escape the oppression of poverty. A poverty, as Fernandes claimed, that is imposed on the people through systemic racism. The racial inequality present in Brazil could even be seen in the costumes chosen for Carnaval. The people of Day were dressed in French colonial garb whereas the people of Night were dressed in African clothing. One usually associates Day/Light with Goodness and Night/Dark with Evil, thus perpetuating racial ideologies in a subtle way.

Concerning cinematography, the use of color was integral to the film. When Eurydice arrived, she was adorned with a yellow necklace. The camera then zoomed in on a yellow canary, representative of Eurydice, in a cage with black crows, representative of Death. Then the scene skips to Serafina, and her own yellow canary is acting up. Canaries sense dangerous levels of toxins in the air, and were used in coalmines for years, but Serafina’s canary was sensing the impending danger of Death. The red lights represented the Underworld, which was depicted as a favela in Brazil, which many would consider an accurate comparison. Overall, I felt that this was an interesting film that successfully put a modern twist on an old Greek myth.

Film Analysis – 1

This film is about a family mourning the suicide of Nora Kurtz, an ex-wife and mother who had attempted suicide several times before finally succeeding. Before she died, Nora left the Passover meal ready, left letters behind for those she cared about, and even left coffee in the pot. Jewish custom does not allow for suicide victims to be buried alongside others, and so it was difficult to find her eternal resting place, but Jose, her ex-husband, found her a spot between his parents.

Overall, the movie was heartwarming, but the only person who showed character development was Jose. At first, he purposely did not follow the Jewish customs and ordered a pizza topped with sausage and bacon during Passover. He was eventually able to put his atheism aside so Nora could rest in peace. He even ate the kosher meal that was prepared for Passover, after initially refusing to eat anything that was left in the refrigerator. When he read the letter Nora left him, I like to think he was finally able to understand Nora and realize that she never stopped loving him. I felt that there was not much dialogue, but the score and cinematography filled up the empty space in a discrete way, and when there was dialogue, a sort of dark/dry humor complimented the somber tone. An example of the use of camera angles is at the end of the movie when the camera zooms out from the apartment building. It goes without saying that no matter how massive a problem seems to an individual, it is minuscule in the grand scheme of things.

In relation to class, it was interesting to see a Latino, Jewish family. Our class has focused a lot on Christianity and Catholicism, that at times it is easy to forget that other religions are present in Latin America. Moreover, it was interesting to see that the cast looked very European with light skin and hair, and the family had a Germanic surname of Kurtz. On the other hand, the maid Fabiana, has darker skin, is from a lesser-known village, and is Catholic or Christian. These are characteristics that are typical of indigenous peoples. Her role as a maid ties into the perpetual servitude/peonage of indigenous populations in Latin America that has been present since the land was colonized by European nations. It would have been simple to cast another white-passing actress, but this casting call seems to be purposeful in the perpetuation of stereotypes.

Cosmic Race – Jose Vasconcelos

Jose Vasconcelos wrote this reading, which can be classified as a thought-piece, in 1925. It is possible that he wrote this in an attempt to persuade the literate masses in Mexico about the superiority of the “fifth race”, inciting a nationalistic fervor, and rallying supporters for his 1928 presidential campaign.

This essay elaborates on how to gain access to the fifth and superior race. Forced marriages and dominance must be left behind, and we must open up to love and choice in order to create a more beautiful, educated and liberal race. The Americas are the new “promised lands,” and we must accept each other in order to be worthy of such gifts. Advancements in technology have debunked the notion that their must be one, superior and dominant race. There are three levels to society: militaristic, which would be won by the Anglos; rational, which would be won by the “Malays”; and aestheticism, which is the best way to live, and would be dominated by the mestizos.

Vasconcelos contradicts himself. He preaches loving thy neighbor and accepting the positive characteristics of other races, but proceeds to denigrate the poor, the uneducated, and the physically unappealing people. He claims the fifth race will be superior because all of these “negative traits” will die out, because these people would not be able to procreate. He is blaming genes for poverty and illiteracy when these are institutional failings.

Do you think these stereotypical positive and negative characteristics of different races are reliable?

Do you believe peace could be attained through this cosmic race?

Does this race sound more like the “whitening” of already existing cultures?