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The Cuba documentary left me with lots of new knowledge, but what I realized is that country's history can influence radically on culture, even if they have the same background, like black people in EUA and Cuba, their ancestors were slaves brought from Africa forced to work, but if you look now to black American and black Cubans, you will find that their culture, identity, and way of thinking is very different, even though they lived through the same major problems like slavery, racism and now prejudice.

I could notice Cuban black people's identity more strong, united and powerful, this is supported by their movements to end racism, the revolution and how they achieved that, also, they identify themselves and find a very big part of their identity the fact that they are Cubans, as important to them as saying they are black, the thing that doesn't happen in EUA, there they just tend to identify as black people who live in the USA. I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of suffering after, Cuba's white establishment stopped pretending that it was a Caribbean extension of Europe and began celebrating their heritage along with black people.

At the end of the documentary you can see that the Cuban Revolution of 1959 pledge to end racism forever, institutional racism ended overnight, legal racism, formal racism, what didn't end was a racism of the heart, of the mind. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the USA intruded in the Cuban government, introducing racist policies which were music to the ears of the Cuban white elite, for many years everything black was immoral, ugly, and bad, they were repressed, black Cuban music wasn't allowed and it was even judged as jungle music.

After watching this I can say I admire Cuban black people because of all the fighting they did, not only to end slavery and racism but because they proudly embraced who they are.

Karla Sámano

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Publicly, Brazil is often sold as a paradise where partying in Rio de Janeiro is all it matters. Kind of how the rest of Latin America is sold to the rest of the world. For instance, when someone thinks about Brazil, it is all about soccer and the carnaval However,  not many think of Liberation Theology, a branch of Christianity that was initiated in Peru, but has spread over Latin America in the last decades.  Liberation Theology focuses on those who have been marginalized or live on a low income. Both of these are the reasons why it has become so important in Brazil.  Liberation Theology is also a movement which is often compared with Black Lives Matter.

While watching the video, I was impressed by the fact that the saying of being “racism free” was spelled by a white man. Kind of makes the phrase irrelevant. I was also intrigued in the magazines with white women on the front page. I wonder if this has changed in the last decade, since the video was made in 2010.

It is desolating to find out that Brazil is said to be a racial democracy, when their people don´t people don’t really believe it. Even the actress who portrayed Chica da Silva was later discriminated, but still used as a 🤬 symbol. It makes me sad because I see that type of things on too many occasions in our own country.

Christian E. Ortiz Aceves

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First of all, I cannot help but mention how interesting it was to observe these countries’ history and compare it with the one in Mexico – even though we are from Latin America (not too geographically distant), and we were initially conquered by the Spanish, our social structures are completely different. Slaves were taken from Africa and sent to work in the island’s plantations. Later, the French took over what is now Haiti, while the Spanish still ruled Dominican Republic.

Dominican Republic’s history is told by the white, because Dominicans identify as white even if their skin tells otherwise – they even have standing statues of some American Presidents as part of their national treasures (something that would be unconceivable in Haiti). Their national heroes and culture are completely “white-washed” as we would so-call now. Adding to this, their identity and national culture is built on repelling anything African-related: Haitians whom are mostly black have been brutally attacked in several occasions, Dominicans consider Spain as their motherland, and they own only a handful of African traditions in their country (some of these practices are even endangered).

On the other hand, Haitians are fully proud of their African roots. With conserved practices such as Voodoo, African music, and even some traces of their language mixed with French, are a living proof that Haiti has a strong connection with its African background, repelling anything from its conquerors and oppressors. Being the first black country to own its independence, Haiti has had its own hardships that have not only been caused by corruption, natural disasters or even lack of talent (teachers, writers and many other artists have fled from the country); but also because of foreign intervention.

What was surprising to me, is how two countries that have “similar” history and ethnical backgrounds can feel so different from each other – these contrasts are not only reflected in their perspective about themselves and their skin color (which has little differentiation), but also these racial conflicts lead to a political partition in the island. I can link this documentary to language itself – the way schools and even people refer to historical moments in these two countries may be a factor that made people take a side: to feel either Spanish or African. What even does national identity mean? We may look similar, live not so far from each other but we still perceive ourselves as different because of the way we were raised, the way we were taught at school, because of our religion, traditions, community, language, and so on. I think neither of these sides are “wrong” – Dominicans feel Spanish because of their culture, political affairs, language, and shared traditions; Haitians feel African because of certain words they use, because of their traditions and religion. The only thing these communities (and politicians) ought to do is to respect and accept one another – at the end of the day, they have suffered together.

One final thought that caught my attention is how racism exists in a country where the people are mostly black or mulattos – this is definitely a trace that the European conquest and foreign intervention left in Latin America. Nevertheless, these ideas are no longer imposed by the white: black people themselves have embraced them, and the world (countries such as the United States) politically accept black countries only if they seem “white enough”.

-Saraí López

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I find it quite strange how cultures interpret their origins and this documentary has made an eye-opening showcase of rejection and pride. The cases of Haiti and the Dominican Republic show a polarizing stance on race while one “whitifies” its historical figures while the others firmly reject the presence of white men in its history.  When it comes to Haiti, we have similarities that would make you think we as countries are alike, for instance our conquerors and geographical location. But even with these things we are two extremely different countries. We didn’t have a French occupation as prevalent as Haiti, but we have its influence. 
	The big difference between the Dominicans and the Haitians is how they treat the white people in its history. For instance, the Dominicans look as being white as a privilege they aspire to be as light skinned as possible. There is a great distance between Dominicans and their African roots, they embraced the dominance of the white man and try to be it. Haiti on the other hand has completely rejected all its white influences, they kept the language but everything else is close to its African origin. In Haiti the practice of voodoo is kept as a form of identity and pride just as African rhythm is practiced in a way to honor their origin. 
The Dominican Republic and Haiti are social opposites in their social views. While the Dominicans have statues of American presidents the Haitians push away anything that reminds them of slavery. While the Dominicans reject anything African related the Haitians embrace it with pride. This is a clear example of how a culture can react differently towards its origins and how to understand the context of a country when understanding its history.

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The importance of understanding what slavery was and its history is the absence of humanity that ended up developing contempt and inferiority within many people. We associate the slave trade to ancient times, identified in European countries, and the USA. Slavery was legally justified for two thousand years, until the 19th century, when it was maintained in the last Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and in Portuguese Brazil. Even when the transatlantic slave trade ended in the 19th century, its legacy of racism persists. Currently, there are populations that, having been victims of the slave trade for centuries, feel inferior compared to the rest of the world. The slave trades have not disappeared, it has only mutated over time. Discrimination, racism, and social exclusion are the consequences of the slave trade. It seems to me of the utmost importance to know the relationship between slavery and racism because even today the importance of skin color continues to shine in a very marked inequality.
Majo Vásquez

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It caught my attention and alarmed, that on an island with a high and majority percentage of “people of color”, blacks were not considered either as Cuban or as an active entity in the forging of nationality. They were marginalized from the rest of society, forcing them to live in an atmosphere of contempt, generating hate and revenge.
Cuba never had a very formalized system of segregation, but the relationship between white and colored Cubans obeys a tacit rule of coexistence known to all. It has its point of equilibrium in a slogan inherited from colonialism and that continues in force: “Together, but not scrambled; each thing in its place".
-Ana Palou

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I think Brazil has a good culture on racism because they don't really care about their skin color, such as in the documentary we saw that even the light skin people in the town considered themselves as a Moreno but they don't make less the people that are actually "negro". That's such a good thing that everyone has the same environment and they don't even care about it. The documentary said also Brazil has a lot of trade off of slaves in the conqueer times ; it was a big part where slaves worked for the sugar plantations and they were considered like the poorest slaves and in the other hand there were kind of slaves that worked for the diamonds and gold mining and there were kind of the rich slaves but it doesn't matter at the end everyone was kind of a slave traded from Africa and they were all between Moreno and negro and they still have the same descendants where they all live together.
Emilio Ambriz

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Previously, we have seen the influence that culture has on our values, decisions and even diseases, but this documentary explains where the culture of these two countries comes from, how they were formed over the years and the influence that history had on each one.

For an instant, we might think that both nations share much in common, after all they both have African ancestors who were victims of slavery, but the reality couldn´t be more different. A crucial factor in the difference of these cultures is the history that each country lived, which aren´t the same, we can start from the fact that different countries conquered them, Spain conquered the Dominican Republic and France conquered Haiti, the main differences that this caused were the language, but the most important thing was the slavery of each country.

While in Haiti the slavery was one of the worst ever seen, reducing slaves to almost nothing, taking away their dignity and forbidding them from practicing their beliefs; in the Dominican Republic the slaves had some benefits and the difference between them and the masters wasn´t so notorious, besides that Dominicans freely adopt the Spanish culture, leaving behind their past in Africa. This difference in slavery that each population lived, was the one that marked the separation of their stories definitively, leading them to have totally different cultures as can be observed today.

If a person wants to understand a country´s culture, it is essential that he/she understands its history; the Dominican Republic and Haiti are a clear example of this. At the beginning of the documentary I couldn´t believe how the Dominicans had turned their backs on their origins, denying their past and the most important factor that connected them to Africa, their skin color. Upon learning of the events that led them to this, I finally understood where the rejection of African culture was coming from, as well as the need to be as "white" as possible. Thinking about this I couldn´t help but compare it with what happens in Mexico, our country was also conquered by Spain and today the society turns its back on its indigenous roots, denying its past and rejecting everything that entails, although Mexican culture retains some indigenous traits, there is no doubt that many things were learned from Spain or the United States.

The culture and country of Haiti are one to admire, because its citizens don´t reject their roots, it´s the opposite, they accept them and maintain them as part of who they are, the difficulties that are part of their history helped them to stand firm in their beliefs and today their culture is the proof of that.

-Joanna Padilla

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Black people have had a big impact in Cuba, not only in its society but also in its economy, since slaves were first brought to work in sugar and coffee camps to be able to fulfill the demands of these products.

The first thing from the video which I was really interested in was that people from various races in Cuba did not see each other as the enemy since they were different, but as fellow Cubans. They were fighting against Spain, not against themselves.

The Cuban nationalistic version of war says how with the intervention of the Unites States, the beginning of an independent republic was prevented. Even though they were allowed to elect their first president, the U.S. still was playing a big role.

This interested me, because the U.S. seem like they always want to intervene and be a part of other countries´ politics and with Cuba they tried to enforce their segregation culture, when most Cubans saw each other as fellow patriots and not as people from different races. And the Cubans who were racists were the descendants of the owners of slaves, so I find interesting how it all makes sense.

But this was changing, and with the government allowing racism, even though there were not specific laws against black people, discrimination was rising because of the U.S. manipulation. But after the revolution and with Fidel Castro cutting relations with them, Cuba was evolving.

In this video we can see how Cuba´s society and culture after the revolution was a collectivist one. We can take the example of teenagers being sent to the poorer areas of Cuba to educate its people and the interesting part is that these teenagers were excited to do this, as Professor Graciela Chailloux says in the video, rather than seeing it as boring.

From watching this video, I really think that if the U.S. didn´t interfere in Cuba´s independence, there would be less racism today, maybe it wouldn´t be completely gone since the descendants of Cubans elitists and the owners of slaves could still have their ancestors ideologies, but I think it would be much less.

- Omar Herrera

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History leaves indelible marks on societies

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History leaves indelible marks on societies

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I was totally impressed by the history of Capoeira dance, arising out of a painful need for self-defense of the African slaves of their abusive masters. Although we must recognize the creativity they developed since they were prohibited from using weapons or practicing martial arts. And it was something that for many years became part of the Afro-Brazilian culture and the culture of the city of Salvador de Bahia.

This is an example of several painful episodes in history that remain for future generations, that is, they forever mark the cultures involved. Similar situations happen in other cultures like with some German people feel ashamed by the history of hatred that they had for the Nazis and the Second World War; in Poland they are sad that their biggest tourist attractions are the Holocaust museums. In short, there are cases where cultures take pride in their history and others where they may feel ashamed or sad. But they cannot do anything about it, it is a brand that will always remain in the memory of those cultures.

The good thing is that in the case of Brazil, they took from this story of injustice and pain the positive of this mixture of cultures that characterizes them and transmitted this folklore to future generations and made them feel proud of these traditions, which even promote and attract tourism from all over the world.

Even their very culture, the result of the mixture of African culture, European culture and that of the native peoples made a mixture of different skin colors where no one is more than another but everyone is from the same place and are happy and proud of be as they are.

José David Delgadillo Mendoza.

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Racism is presented as historically and geographically specific, and as pathological, whereas discrimination is universal and normal. The concept of racism has been of great rhetorical power in mobilising international action for political change in Southern Africa. It has helped induce more than three-quarters of UN member states to become parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Antidiscrimination laws are designed to protect particular classes of people in particular social spheres from actions which have either the purpose or the effect of impairing the exercise of their human rights.

The multifarious expressions of racism can affect health via several recognised direct and indirect pathways. Indirect pathways include differential access to societal resources and health determinants by race/ethnicity, as evidenced by long-standing ethnic inequities in income, education, employment and living standards, with subsequent impacts on living environments and exposure to risk and protective factors. At the individual level, experience of racism can affect health directly through physical violence and stress pathways, with negative psychological and physiological impacts leading to subsequent mental and physical health consequences. In addition, racism influences healthcare via institutions and individual health providers, leading to ethnic inequities in access to and quality of care. For example, ethnic disparities in socioeconomic status can indirectly result in differential access to care, while health provider ethnic bias can influence the quality and outcomes of healthcare interactions.

Many parents use different statements in order to reflect the bad influence of gypsies in white’s world. Statements like: Do not spit like gypsies., Those moneys were touched by gypsies and you stick them into your mouth! What disgusting! or even worse If you’re not good I’ll sell you to gypsies are used in everyday life in order to break children of a bad habit and with or without intention, parents also promote and approve racism, by teaching those that gypsies are bad. By this, the bases of racism are well constructed by parents and since children are taught racism before getting to school, parents should be more careful on what they say and what they do and ask themselves if racism is the best solution in learning their children basics and behavior.

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Slavery was a normal act for rich white people a long time ago, they used to use black people to do their shores and they casically owned them, nowadays slavery as such doesn´t exist but we see racism very often, maybe thats not slavery but its as bad as it because people think they are superior than people with different color. I believe that this is a consequence of slavery, racism may not be as physical as slavery but it can be as aggressive.
Racism is bad in every way, because doesnt validate other people´s rights, it affects mentally to the people involved, making them believe that they are inferior than others and sometimes racism can get physycal and damage physically to some people. For me, racism is rhe new slavery.
-Eduardo Romero

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Relationships Between Neighboring Countries - Tania Romero

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Relationships Between Neighboring Countries - Tania Romero

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Culture can work in such strange ways. Yet, from my point of view, this is one of the reasons why it is so fascinating to study it. The cultural and historical heritage of the Dominican Republic and Haiti are completely new to me, however, very interesting to get to know. I had no idea that Haiti was the first nation to achieve independence in Latin America through a slave revolution! It is impressive to learn that from horrendous oppression phenomenons –like slavery–, inspirational and impressive actions can also result from it.

I thought it was interesting how in the Dominican Republic they call each other “indio”, which, from what I understood, is not an offensive term. However, in Mexico, using this word is insulting and disrespectful in terms of race, especially towards the indigenous population. Nevertheless, not everything in the Dominican Republic is different than in Mexico. It caught my attention the way in which they look down on Hatians, thinking of themselves as superior, especially because Haiti is a low-income country. This reminded me of the relationship between the US and Mexico. Speaking from a wide point of view (I am not implying that this is the case for all US citizens), Americans look down on us in different ways and due to diverse reasons; our lack of technology and infrastructure in comparison to theirs, our skin colors, our religion (Catholic) and specially, due to the fact that so many of us migrate to their country in search of a better life. However, Mexico and the US are not that different from each other; we are both nations that were colonized by Europeans but had native people living in it, in terms of race we are both diverse and, geographically, we are surrounded by the same bodies of water (we even both take sports seriously too!).

Therefore, I think that the relationship between the US and Mexico, and the Dominican Republic are a reminder that our culture is shaped not only by what happens inside our border, but also by external influences and the way in which we respond to such.

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Brazil’s government says that the nation is racism free. They claim that all the citizens share the same roots. On the surface the racism seems to be eradicated . Although the nation had the second largest concentration of black people, in fact,  they are considered as second-class people!

The documentary shows that the racism is present  in different ways across the country and how it was incentivized.  For  example Rio  de Janeiro is split  in two areas: In the touristic one, where  you will find almost only white people ; and the  second one , the Favelas: where you will see a great concentration of black people living in poverty.

The government several years ago had a whitening program, where the goal was to avoid having only black citizens. The government paid European immigrants to live in the country and mix with the locals.   The catholic churches prohibited the existence of wealthy black people.  Also, the country national culture was majorly racist, many black women used to   feel ashamed of their black ethnic characteristics: they used to iron their afro hair and use a very white make up.

Over the past century, brazil had several activist and intellectual figures, who pursue the equality and the respect for black people in the country. They had estimated that this problem still will last more decades, since the government claims that the country is a racial paradise, the black people do not require to do anything.

Regards,

Diego Charles Suarez.

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Brazil has the second largest black population in the world

Brazil racial mixed comes from slavery

Portuguese people bought African slaves to work on the sugar plantation

Capoeira started as a way for African people to strength and defend themselves , is a form of training design for self-defense

Th majority of black people that live in Brazil have the religion of Candomblé that is a mixture of cultures and ethnicities that so defines Brazil

All the different tones of brown come from the time of slavery, there was a shortage of white women and “🤬 is colorblind”; an example of this is Chica Da Silva who was a salve in Brazil and ended up being on the most wealthiest woman on town

Many activist used to and some of them are still trying to perpetuate their costumes like capoeira, the religion and even the hair styles

The black presence in Brazil was fundamental to its culture and societal identity

The multicultural heritage of Carnaval became Brazil’s new metaphor for racial democracy

Brazil has never had a massive civil rights movement which maybe why there is still racism and a form of segregation

Racial democracy also might be a lie, to keep the black people on “their place”, to avoid any major movement

Affirmative action is what brazil needs to achieve racial democracy
Maria Andrea Zulbaran Pacheco

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One of the things that I take from this is the bond between races for a common goal. As a mexican I can relate to the fact of wanting to take a stand for defending your culture. I mean I grew up learning about mexican independence and how they treated natives. I know i may not have lived that but I can connect with my culture. I have so much respect for the people that decided to live freely and to see how Vicente Goytisolo used his voice to make awareness and start a movement really inspires me.

However I am really angry with how even after all the efforts cubans made for their freedom there were still so many ways that people from other countries suppressed them. I am not surprised that there was a time when even cubans didn’t want to relate themselves to their origines. I mean I can’t blame them, I have lived the pressure and constant display of how to be european it’s supposed to be better.

It is with great pleasure that I find that in time their own culture started to emerge again. The fact that music was always very present talks a lot about how identity will always stay.

Carlos Arturo Vélez López