The Making of Latin America Blog

  Hi Dylan! I found your post very interesting. This history seems to show that you can "take control" of a nation without any military action. I would definitely agree as well that this exploitation or controlling seems to have stunted their economic growth in a way. Rather than being able to rebuild and revitalize their nations after gaining independence, they were forced to pay back debts and some even went bankrupt, and this seems to have had long-lasting effects

I found our discussion of the history of the Panama Canal to be very interesting. A few years back I had the opportunity to visit the canal, which I found fascinating. Above is a picture I took from the plane landing in Panama City showing all the ships waiting to pass through. The detail I find most mind-boggling about the canal is the staggering amount of human lives that were lost. One estimate places the number of deaths at 25,000 total between the different nations that attempted the feat. I find this number astronomical, and it reminds me of the great lengths people are willing to go through to somehow improve trade or wealth. When finished, the canal did shave a lot of time off of a ship's transit between the east and west coast of the US, but was it worth 25,000 or more lives? Many of these lives lost were from the failed French attempt to make the canal. This makes me wonder why the US, after seeing the bankruptcy and death toll from the French attempt, decided to go forwa...

  Hi Annika! I can completely relate to struggling with poetry. I'm not very good at thinking as far out of the box as poetry seems to require, so the deeper meanings usually go over my head. I liked your point on humans impacting the land and environment around us. I think we definitely need to heed the warning you pointed out, otherwise we could do even more damage than we've already done.

 This week, I found our discussion of the Mexican-American War to be very interesting. This war is fascinating, as it seems to have set off some very interesting events. Mexico lost a huge portion of its country, and within a little over a decade would be invaded by the French. Gold was discovered in California shortly after the war, sparking the gold rush, but the new land added to the US heightened the fighting over whether new states should have slavery or not, ultimately leading to the Civil War. This reminds me of the poem we read in Professor Serrata's part of class. The land Mexico relinquished to the US truly is beautiful. With the Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forests, and the Rocky Mountains, the land contains a wealth of natural beauty. Instead of wondering at this beauty, though, the two countries decided to go to war over it, and much blood was shed over who could keep this land and exploit it for wealth. Additionally, this war would indirectly lead to other wars in each o...

To be honest, my break was refreshingly anticlimactic. I worked some, but other than that I pretty much chilled. It was also nice to spend the holidays with my family. Nothing has really changed with my life either other than switching from normal fishing to ice fishing. My expectations for this new semester are pretty similar to last semester. I expect to learn and work a lot and to have my preconceived notions of Latin America challenged. I added a picture of our puppy Reina having recently discovered snow for the first time. We decided to name her Reina because after getting her we soon realized she's the new "queen" of our house. Looking forward to a new semester!