Tulane Undergraduate Conference on Latin America

TUCLA

VIII Annual

Tulane Undergraduate Conference on Latin America

Saturday Nov. 20, 2010

Jones Hall 102 and 108

Sponsored by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies

The Stone Center’s annual TUCLA conference is an interdisciplinary undergraduate symposium in which seniors from the Latin American Studies core seminar present their individual research projects. TUCLA was formally launched in Fall of 2003 as a means to provide Latin American Studies undergraduates with an opportunity to present papers in the style and atmosphere of an academic conference. The conference is designed to enlist all of Tulane’s LAST seniors in a shared discussion of the region, its society and its cultures.

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Schedule

- Coffee and Welcome 8:30-9:00 -

- Session I 9:00-10:30 -

Panel 1: Welfare (Jones 102)

Compromise and Conflict: Recent Policy Debates in Latin America.

Carlos Grover, “Property Struggles In Brazilian Cities: ‘Treating The Equal Equally and the Unequal Unequally’”

Abigail Nixon, “Cuba’s Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina: Doctors of Science and Conscience”

Jessie Yoste, “Hexed? Vodou Observance of Trauma through the Lens of the 2010 Haitian Earthquake”

Discussant: Dr. Maureen Long, Murphy Institutef Political Economy and Center for Ethics and Public Affairs

Panel 2: Identity (Jones 108)

The Paradoxes of Perspective: Agency, Identity and Nation in Latin America Film and Literature

Davita Petty, “’Zora, don’t you come here and tell de biggest lie first thing’: Creole Identity in the Writing of Zora Neale Hurston

Cristina Alvarado-Suarez, “Desenmascarando la identidad nacional: The Problem of National Integration and Nicaraguan Literature”

Phylicia Martel, “Romance and Revolution at a Crossroads: Mapping Zapatista Discourse in Corazón del tiempo”

Discussant: Dr. Roxanne Davila, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

- Session II 10:45-12:15 -

Panel 3: Encounter (Jones 102)

Intermestic Identities: Twenty-First-Century Geo-Politics and Cultural Transformation

Stephanie Moore, “Blown Away: Indigenous Rights in Coca-Crazed Bolivia”

Eric Schwartz, “Communism’s Silent Killer: The Hustle to Freedom”

Jessica Frankel, “A New Hegemony for Bolivia? Embracing Indigeneity in Response to the War on Drugs”

Discussant: Dr. Raúl A. Sánchez Urribarrí, Department of Political Science

Panel 4: Nation (Jones 108)

Solidarity Beyond the State: New Concepts of Citizenship in Post-Neo-Liberal Latin America

Eva Canan “Lixo Humano? The Social Transformation of Brazilian Waste Pickers”

Pike, Rebecca “Children of the Revolution: Afro-Brazilian Youth Movements in the 21st Century”

Jane Esslinger, “Slaughter Houses, Factories and Conventillos: New Spaces for Culture-Based Urban Development and Citizen Participation in Neo-Liberal Buenos Aires”

Discussant: Dr. David G. Ortiz, Department of Sociology

- Lunch (Greenleaf Conference Room) 12:15 -1:15

(By Invitation Only)

-Session III 1:15 -2: 45 -

Panel 5: Exchange (Jones 102)

Our North is the South: How Recent Migration Patterns and Policy Trouble Conventional Wisdom

Kathleen Dunn, “Welcome Home? Consequences of Return Migration in Western Mexico”

Rachel Young, “Salir Adelante: The Curious Case of Peruvian Migration to Chile and the Singularity of the Peruvian Migrant”

Monica Peters, “Immigration is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: The Formation of Mexico’s immigration policy and its Role as a Receiving and Transit State.”

Discussant: Dr. Casey Kane Love, Department of Political Science

Panel 6: Creativity (Jones 108)

A History of Violence: Human Dignity and the Politics of Representation

Emily Gatehouse, “‘Me gustaría saber más. Me gustaría saber todo.’ The Duality of Memorializing Argentine State Terrorism”

Rebecca Chilbert, “Made in Mexico: How the Mexican Media presents Slavery as Something Made in China”

Susie DeLapp, “Failing the Poto Mitan? International Aid Organizations and Structural Violence in Haiti”

Discussant: Dr. Justin Wolfe, Department of History

Paper Abstracts

Panel 1: Welfare

Compromise and Conflict: Recent Policy Debates in Latin America.

Carlos Grover, “Property Struggles In Brazilian Cities: ‘Treating The Equal Equally and the Unequal Unequally’” This project explores differing conceptions of urban property in Brazil and how these conceptions consolidated in articles 182 and 183 of Brazil’s 1988 constitution. Article 182 states that property must fulfill a social function. This clause engages a conception of property that sees property ownership as a right that comes with responsibilities. The inclusion of article 182 opens the door to redistribution of property to those who will have greater use for it. While article 182 guarantees that property fulfill a social function, article 183 establishes extremely limited mechanisms for redistribution. I argue that differing conceptions of property developed in a highly stratified colonial context and that these strata were sufficiently isolated from one another to develop their own ideas of what property ownership meant. These differing and often competing understandings were preserved and manifest themselves in elements of articles 182 and 183. These two articles create a strange situation in which the benefits of non-elite strata understandings of property can be extended to elites, while non-elites experience extremely limited gains.

Abigail Nixon, “Cuba’s Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina: Doctors of Science and Conscience”One of the greatest successes of the Cuban Revolution is its wide reaching medical diplomacy program. Cuban medical teams have been aiding areas in need since the 1960s; moreover, with the goal of creating a long-lasting and stable national medical infrastructure, Cuban medical schools have been established abroad to help educate students from the region. These students will replace Cuban physicians working abroad. In 1999, the Cuban government created the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM; Latin American School of Medicine) with the intent to train doctors from families that would not typically have access to a medical education at no cost. These students must, however, commit to serving underdeveloped areas after graduation. Since it’s establishment, ELAM has produced 7248 physicians from over 40 countries, many with a focus on primary care or family medicine. In this article, I explore how a school that prioritizes the education of marginalized peoples improves health indices in underserved areas through accessible primary care. Specifically, I argue that the recruitment of groups that are typically marginalized with a commitment to working in underdeveloped areas after graduation enables ELAM to produce physicians that successfully improve health care programs in their native countries. I propose that the United States government should look to the Cuban model to learn about methods of improving health care and lowering its associated costs. I respond to critics who doubt the validity of ELAM's curriculum or the worth of the degree given upon graduation, contending that the program’s focus on minority students, emphasis on primary care, and serious commitment to aiding underserved communities should be a model for the United States government seeking methods of improving health care and lowering its associated costs.

Jessie Yoste, “Hexed? Vodou Observance of Trauma through the Lens of the 2010 Haitian Earthquake” In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, emergency medical responders evaluated and treated those seeking medical treatment through the rapid establishment of temporary clinics. After the treatment of physical wounds, the next injuries to be addressed were psychological. Trauma and distress following natural disaster require specialized treatment, according to guidelines approved by many international medical regulating organizations. The interpretation of the disaster often appears through retrospective reflection. This paper explores Haitian Vodou practices and beliefs in relation to rituals and reflection on major issues facing a community after disaster, specifically mental distress or illness and mass casualties. I discuss the ways in which Haitian Vodou influences the reflective processes of observers and causes obstacles for conventionally trained counselors and physicians. I argue that the use of Vodou ritual as treatment for trauma creates a sustainable practice for clinicians, which is economically and culturally appropriate to Haitian realities. My examination of the discontinuities found within conventional and alternative medicinal practices, specifically Haitian Vodou, reveals the necessity for the incorporation of Vodou culture to effectively aid in long-term mental health recovery in Haiti.

Panel 2: Identity

The Paradoxes of Perspective:

Agency, Identity and Nation in Latin America Film and Literature

Davita Petty,“Zora, don’t you come here and tell de biggest lie first thing.” Creole Identity in the Writing of Zora Neale Hurston Alice Walker, the African American feminist author responsible for the excavation and promotion of Zora Neale Hurston’s work, remarks distastefully over the inconsistencies in Hurston’s autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road calling it “the most unfortunate thing Zora ever wrote.” Walker is amongst Hurston’s most ardent supporters, yet is unable to reconcile the discovery of fabrication within a textual format that she feels is supposed to be completely factual. I contend that readers with a limited understanding of Hurston’s influences, most particularly Caribbean culture and art forms, struggle to interact with this fluidity of concept and veracity, misunderstanding intentional vagueness as the author’s failure to create explicit conclusions. I will begin by establishing the creole origins of Hurston’s identity by drawing upon scholarship that defies national boundaries and acknowledges the American South as a cultural extension of the Caribbean. These theories will be carried into an analysis textual evidence exemplifying shared Black Atlantic traditions such as disguised subversion, oral tradition and blended religion. My research will examine anthropologic studies and literary theory mirroring the academic disciplines most commonly engaged by this author. I argue that Hurston’s invocation of these elements allows her to resist creative limitation and repression by embracing ambiguity and multiplicity. The acceptance of Hurston’s process and product as creole provides a system of language and metaphors that advances the interpretation of Hurston’s writing and displays the error of critique that does not engage the cultural identity and experience of this author.

Cristina Alvarado-Suarez, “‘Desenmascarando la identidad nacional’: The Problem of National Integration and Nicaraguan Literature” Until the 1984 Sandinista multicultural citizenship reforms, scarce attention had been paid to issues relating to Nicaragua’s AtlanticCoast. These reforms, which officially took effect in 1987, were meant to provide cultural autonomy, self-governance to the AtlanticCoast as well as provide land rights to Costeño indigenous and Afro-Nicaraguans. However, scholars have argued they failed to perform their inclusionary purpose, resulting in the continuation of the cultural separation of the AtlanticCoast from the dominant national mainstream. This separation is evident in the creation of the arts in both the Pacific and AtlanticCoast, in particular through literature. This paper examines the literature of Pablo Antonio Cuadra –founding member of the Nicaraguan Vanguard- and Lizandro Chavez Alfaro –a Bluefields native and advocate of the Atlantic Coast –before and after these reforms to explore the problem of cultural and political integration of the once Mosquito Atlantic Coast, with the rest of the Nicaraguan region. I examine Pablo Antonio Cuadra’s literature in relation to the greater Vanguardia discourse of mestizaje as well as its influence on the politics of the country in the first half of the twentieth century; and its change after the multicultural citizenship reforms. Lizandro Chavez Alfaro’s work, in contrast, advocates for the rights of Costeños as well as for autonomy of the AtlanticCoast, and whose literature is drenched with nostalgia of how the AtlanticCoast could have been as well as criticism of Nicaragua’s Central government’s policies –or lack thereof- towards the region. Alfaro criticizes the reforms by rewriting the history of the coast from a costeño perspective. I argue that though the Sandinista reforms recognized a long neglected sector of the population in the AtlanticCoast, literary production from both the Coast and mainstream suggests that they did not manage to bridge the political and economic gap. Moreover, they did not significantly alter the dominant mestizo construct by integrating the AtlanticCoast into a multicultural Nicaragua.

Phylicia Martel, “Romance and Revolution at a Crossroads: Mapping Zapatista Discourse in Corazón del tiempo” Over the past sixteen years, Mexico’s revolutionary Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) have intended to spread a message that represents who they are and what they stand for across borders. By harnessing the power of media and technology, they have been able to gain widespread support from a global audience. Corazón del tiempo (2009) is one of the most recent media productions to surface from the Zapatista media artillery. The film presents a fictional account of a love triangle between three members of a rural, indigenous, Zapatista community, where the struggle for autonomy is ever-present. I argue that the film represents the Zapatistas’ effort to promote their ideology and an awareness of the on-going struggle for indigenous autonomy in the Chiapas region. Nevertheless, the intended local message and the methodology of producing and delivering it to a global audience forged a problematic crossroads, where multiple, conflicting representations of the movement meet. This paper explores the ways in which Corazón del tiempo engages several different audiences, attempting to blend the romanticized, traditional perception of the Indian with the modern, politicized view of the Indian within a broader revolutionary history of Latin America.

Panel 3: Encounter

Intermestic Identities:

Twenty-First-Century Geo-Politics and Cultural Transformation

Stephanie Moore, “Blown Away: Indigenous Rights in Coca-Crazed Bolivia” Over the past two decades, cocaine use in the United States, Canada and Europe has grown exponentially. As a result, the market for the coca leaf is larger than ever before. Evo Morales, President of Bolivia and party member to the Coca Grower Union in Chapare, has given rise to a booming coca economy in Bolivia, both licit and illicit, which is now funding a significant percentage of the Bolivian economy. Unfortunately, those benefiting from this rapid growth in the coca plant are rarely indigenous communities, and are instead narcotraffickers from nearby countries interested in cultivating the coca into cocaine to sell for significantly larger profits. In this paper I propose that while extensive growth is helping the Bolivian economy presently and Morales totes that it is in the protection of indigenous rights, coca growth has actually brought more violence to the indigenous populations of Bolivia and will halt long-term economic growth due to the nature of the plant itself and its legality internationally. Alternative growth markets subsidized by the Bolivian government and the United Nations would be a much better alternative to extensive coca growth, which currently funds coca-based companies established by Morales such as “Coca-Colla” with real coca and coca leaf tea. My research will help to redefine the definition of the United Nations 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Article 14 and determine the best methods for protecting indigenous use of the coca leaf while keeping the market low for narcotraffickers and thus helping to protect indigenous rights to use coca in religious and traditional practices without leading to unnecessary violence in Bolivia.

Eric Schwartz, “Communism’s Silent Killer: Cuba's Jinetero and The Hustle to Freedom”

Jineterismo has been described as a movement of those engaged in illegal activities such as prostitution, solicitation of tourists and unsanctioned selling of goods. It has blossomed since Cuba's "special period" of the early 1990’s. Under one of the most repressive authoritarian regimes in Central America the Jinetero openly roam the streets of Havana, dressed in expense clothes and driving luxury cars in search of tourists who they try to convince to purchase their services. The monies so earned are considered illegal profit. Their flashy lifestyle is emblematic of the rewards gained through capitalistic entrepreneurship. In a nation on the brink of financial collapse those who thrive do so illegally. The incentive to oppose the communist government grows in the population with every gesture of envy of the Jinetero’s extravagance. Every dollar they earn is a subversive rebellion against the conformity of the collective. It may be asked if the open activities of the Jinetero pose a legitimate threat to the communist establishment. Does the bribing of police and the lack of action taken against them represent a weakening of Castro’s repressive hold on the people of Cuba? Or perhaps their presence is simply ignored with a wink and a nod. I contend that the Jinetero are in fact representative of a change in the spirit and psychology of the Cuban people and that this change does threaten the functioning of the Cuban communist system. Further I suggest that the influence of the capitalistic spirit instilled in part by the Jinetero will manifest itself in 'bottom up' reform of the communist political system.

Jessica Frankel, “A New Hegemony for Bolivia? Embracing Indigeneity in Response to the War on Drugs” The United States’ misguided drug policy attacks Andean farmers, mistakenly characterizing the coca crop as an enemy. If cocaine is viewed as an enemy, then logically so is coca, and all who grow and produce it. However, the coca leaf has been an essential part of Andean culture for millennia, and continues to be widely used in a spiritual and healing context to this day. The War on Drugs transformed coca into a commodity that the U.S. is determined to destroy. The most brutal attempts to eradicate coca came at the same time as neoliberal reforms, which Bolivians collectively experienced as attempts to squander their sovereignty and destroy their culture. In this paper, I argue that, as a result of this treatment, coca has morphed from being a normal part of the quotidian into a monumental and problematic symbol of identity for the Bolivian popular classes. Specifically I explore the ways in which Bolivians have reacted to what they experience as a threat to their culture by taking a protective stance over their right to grow coca and embracing a romanticized vision of indigenous identity. Political leaders Evo Morales of the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) and Felipe Quispe of the MIP (Indigenous Pachakuti Movement) recognized this opportunity to capitalize on identity politics, each carefully framing their movements around the importance of indigenous identity. This paper argues that while Quispe promotes an exclusive indianist identity, Morales endorses the new hegemonic “pueblo origonario,” or “original people” ideal: a new, all inclusive, semi-indigenous identity, which I assert, allows Bolivians plural, overlapping identities that claim indigenous heritage without limiting themselves to the historically stigmatized ‘indigena’ identity. I conclude that, although origionario identity seems all-inclusive, it assumes that there is only one way of being indigenous potentially marginalizing those indigenous people who don’t fit the new ideal.