Uncategorized

One particular class that really stood out to me was the class we read and discussed about Subcomandante Marcos. After the readings, I found him to be a very interesting figure and wanted to learn more about him because of his ideals and personal history. There were 3 points that particularly stood out to me:

1. His background and its similarities with Che Guevara – Subcomandante Marcos, like Che Guevara was brought up in a middle-income household and had good education. He also got to travel around in Latin America, in which he experienced and witnessed a lot of injustices towards marginalized groups. This garnered his hatred towards capitalism and US intervention, which ultimately helped form the basis of his rebel group. His background is relatively similar to Che Guevara and we can draw many similarities between these two characters in that they both ended up forming rebel guerrilla groups that were anti-capitalist and anti-government.
2. The reason he chose Chiapas – We discussed the region of Chiapas a lot in class and sought to understand why Subcomandante Marcos chose Chiapas as his region of interest. It turns out Chiapas is one of the states that has the most indigenous people and has one of the highest poverty rates. It is also on the southern border of Mexico which borders Guatemala, a country with a rich indigenous culture. Subcomandante Marcos probably relocated to Chiapas because he found a wider audience there and also was able to relate to the indigenous people there.
3. His commitments/ideals and contradictions – Even though Subcomandante Marcos was strongly anti-capitalist and wanted proper social reform from the government, he utilized tools that were very much capitalist such as the TV and mass media. He was very good at speaking and utilized his voice and “good looks” to gather supporters for his cause. Even American journalists went to interview him. Another ideal that he preached was democracy. However, we learned that he actually told many of his supporters to boycott votes. There were even allegations against him that he bribed politicians.

I found Subcomandante Marcos’ story to be very interesting and at times contradicting. His background story was very similar to Che Guevara and the reason for protest was also admirable. However, he has now retired and is living in the mountains where his legacy continues to thrive in the state of Chiapas.

Reflecting over my peer responses and posts, I have been quite consistent on posting comments and posts. Before the midterm, I had 3 posts including the first post regarding my idea of Latin America, the secondo post regarding Tim Ingle and how Toyota North America is planning its operations, and a post talking about Simon Bolivar. Now, I have 5 posts including this one and I am planning on writing my last post as a reflection on the topic that I enjoyed the most. Like my posts, I believe my comments have been quite frequent as I spaced them out throughout the year and I have now commented on 7 different people’s posts. Some of the most successful comments that I received this year were mainly on my second post regarding Tim Ingle’s talk. I talked about economic issues, the supply chain crisis and inflation and I think some of my readers enjoyed the economic aspect of the talk. Some of the comments also included interesting and thought-provoking questions such as issues regarding sustainability and how to be more cost efficient in Latin America, an area that is still developing. I also got another interesting question regarding how inflation will impact imports and Mexican-US relations since there is so much trade that goes on between the two countries. Overall, I think the comments I received on that post were very positive and successful as my readers were able to relate to what I talked about and they also posed questions that made me think further.

Reading my peer’s posts, I learned a lot about my peer’s perspectives on Simon Bolivar, Tupac Amaru II, and their thoughts on events they attended during the semester. Particularly, I found a post from my peer about social impact investing in Latin America to be very interesting. Since I did not attend this event, I learned from my peer’s post that we can use private capital to invest in startups and use venture capital to grow these companies that make positive impacts in society. Specifically, the post talked about how youth empowerment and technological education can be used to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations. I found this post to be very interesting and I wish I had attended.

A while ago, I had the chance to attend Susan Harbage Page’s exhibit in the Davidson Gallery. Her exhibit was called the U.S. – Mexico Border Project, in which she made yearly trips to the US-Mexican border to photograph and pick up artifacts she deemed important. This included more than 1,000 objects, such as clothing, razors, shoes, backpacks, toothbrushes among many other items. The goal of the exhibit was to show the reality of what was happening at the border – fear, prosecution, trauma and much more. 

Many immigrants from Latin America travelled thousands of miles to escape war, violence, and unfair treatment in their home countries in order for a better life in the US. However, these leftover items tell us that many migrants had to leave items on the road as they were either too heavy which impeded their trip, or they were picked up by border control and sent back to their countries. I found this exhibit powerful because based on their items, we can see what many of the migrants were thinking as they made their trip to the border. Some brought along toys, meaning they were probably travelling as a family. Others brought along lipstick, possibly for the purpose of creating motivation for themselves to finish the journey. Many pieces of clothing were left as well, signifying that some migrants were possibly raped and assaulted by “smugglers”. All these individual objects tell us a separate story, but seeing these objects together also give us a wider picture of the burdens, fear, and aspirations of many of the migrants. 

Even though we haven’t covered migration in the 21^st century in Latin America, some connections can be established between the class on Cesar Chavez and the Bracero Program with the exhibit. In this class, we talked about migration and labor mobility from Mexico to the US. Even though there were many documented workers, there were also undocumented workers who came to the US to work. Many workers thought they would have a better life in the US, but it turns out that most were treated poorly with low wages and houses with no running water. If this was the case for legal and documented migrant workers, I would hate to imagine what it would be like for undocumented workers. This exhibit focuses on the journey for migrants, but not the potential outcomes for migrants who make it pass the border. While the journey is extremely difficult, the conditions once across the border may be even harsher if there is a lack of support.  

When I lived in Ecuador, I saw many streets called Simon Bolivar Avenue, Simon Bolivar Road, or Simon Bolivar Park. Even though I heard the name so many times, I never thought of researching this name or looking into the history of this name. When I heard his name in class, I was very pleased to get the chance to finally learn about Simon Bolivar because I witnesses his legacy in Latin America first before learning his story. He interests me a lot because of his fame in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela and I was very curious into knowing who this person was.

It seems evident that Simon Bolivar had a huge contribution in Gran Colombia or present day Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. He also had a huge influence in Peru and Bolivia, and Bolivia even took his name because of Bolivar’s contribution to the region. In fact, he is known as the founding father or the liberator of all of these countries because he helped these countries gain independence from Spain. Even though he was educated in Spain, he criticized Spain and fought with militias that fought pro-Spanish royalists. Later on in his Angostura Address, he claims that Latin America was bound by European laws and enslaved by imperialists. He also uses the idea of positivism, calling for democracy, popular vote and racial equality. Unlike the US Founding Fathers, Simon Bolivar called for the abolition of slavery in the Americas. This helped create unity amongst those who despised the Spanish crown and helped the fight for independence. However, he is also rather contradictory in his Angostura Address because in 1828, he “disregards” freedom and democracy and calls for the people to follow him to rule in an authoritarian manner. I find this particularly interesting, because this trend of going from a freedom fighter to an authoritarian is evident in many cases. Once people obtain power, they often get corrupted and they want to consolidate their power into their own hands. This is extremely dangerous and creates authoritarian regimes like Simon Bolivars’. He calls for a hereditary senate which limits representation because he believes some people are not fit to participate in politics. Moreover, while he is supportive of abolishing slavery, he claims that Black Latin Americans and Indigenous people should have a limit on how much they have a voice and representation in the country. 

On Wednesday September 14th, I attended Tim Ingle’s talk at Davidson College. As Toyota North America’s CFO, it was very interesting to hear his opinions and perspectives on supply chain issues, inflation, and geopolitical tensions that are directly affecting Toyota and the automobile industry. He emphasized that all these three topics are actually connected. The materials that are used to make cars come from all across the world including countries that are friendly with the US and countries that are less-friendly with the US, specifically China and Russia. Recent geopolitical tension regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taiwan strait has serious consequences for Toyota. For example, many raw materials are mined in Russia because of its rich deposits, however the sanctions have led to much higher input prices for Toyota’s cars. Moreover, Mr. Ingle mentioned that while some minerals such as lithium are mined in countries like Australia, they are refined in China. Hence, Toyota ultimately has to purchase the lithium from Chinese companies. With severing relations between China and the US, Toyota is expecting for higher tariffs. With inflation at its highest point in many years, these supply chain issues and protectionist policies are making prices of cars higher. 

Another really interesting topic that Mr. Ingle touched upon was electrical vehicles versus hybrid vehicles. With the target of reaching net zero, many automobile companies have focused on developing EVs. However, Toyota has been focusing on developing hybrid vehicles that run with electricity and when the power runs out, it switches to burning petrol. According to Mr. Ingle, this business model has been very effective and many more people are purchasing hybrid cars because it is sustainable and the car can travel for long distances if needed unlike EVs. 

It was really interesting to hear about these macroeconomic topics in a specific industry, and how Toyota is doing its best to accommodate these supply chain shocks. In economics classes, we learn theories and graphs but not many applicable examples. This talk gave me the chance to think about those theories and how they work in reality. In terms of sustainability and reaching net zero, I think it is doable but still rather challenging. As long as car companies are still using raw materials that are mined from the earth to make cars, it will be very difficult to reduce the environmental impact of mining activities that contribute hugely to climate change.