Applying this thinking to Latin America, I was always confused on the distaste towards the United States (especially with Cuba). When learning about the relationship between Cuba and the United States there have always been fuzzy gaps in the story that didn't quite add up or the blanket statement "they are communists and communists are bad."
After class, I feel complete in this puzzle that I have pondering on since high school. There are valid reasons for the United States reputation and stigma in Cuba. America took advantage of the Cuban independent movement for their own economic and imperial interests. The US took the Cuban presents out of the war and inserted itself in place.
Moving forward, I am glad to see that the travel ban had been lifted in Cuba and I hope that we, as a nation, will grow in diplomatic relations. History should be taught in multiple perspectives because that is when people will get a more complete picture of what really occurred. I wish I had this knowledge about Latin America, from Inca to the present, much earlier in life because I feel like I have been brainwashed to think a certain way.
AJ, you're very right when you say that throughout our education, we have been taught that the United States' ideals are liberty and equality, and we do things at whatever cost it may be to stick up for those. We were taught that the US is selfless; that we enter wars to defend those ideals and those ideals alone. And I guess it makes sense why they teach us this way, because they want to promote a sense of civic nationalism - and what better way than making us turn a blind-eye to the parts of history which we don't have a huge sense of pride in (I'm sure there are better ways)! They most likely put the "fuzzy gaps" that you're talking about in place and hope that people don't question it - which, in the same education system, we aren't really taught to question the information given to us. How were we supposed to question information when we had no resources to inform us that maybe there was something missing or wrong?
ReplyDeleteNow that we have escaped the grasps of somewhat brainwashing, somewhat ignorant K-12 education, we can now fully understand the concept of the United States twisting situations to make wars seem like they are of humanitarian concern and not economic. Now that we aren't necessarily being spoon-fed information and our professors are actually trying to make us think in depth about these topics, we can see that the United States isn't the humanitarian hero they're all cracked up to - perhaps even the opposite, as we see with our current president.
So I got on a mini rant, but thanks for posting AJ. I think I needed to get that all off my chest anyways!
This title instantly hit me. I've been thinking the exact same thing ever since this sequence started challenging how we thought of history. When I went home for a weekend in October, my sister was learning about the Spanish Conquest. The same weekend I was writing a paper about how the indigenous allies contributed to the defeat of the Mexica, her homework was called "Guns and Disease." As if it were that simple. In K-12 education, we were taught the Spanish were simply stronger and better than the "Aztecs." We were taught that Spain blew up a boat and we declared war because they started it. We were taught that America always stood for liberty and democracy, but it doesn't. I think realizing there are different interpretations of history is important, but in a way it's too little too late. I wish we could teach children K-12 various perspectives. I'm not sure how to do this though. History is confusing, its controversial and even causes us to question everything we know. I understand that children cannot handle that, at times I can't even handle it now in college. Even still, there must be a way to teach accurate history earlier in school, because not only do I feel brainwashed, but I see it happening to my siblings.
ReplyDelete