PBS Series on Latin America

On September 24, I attended a screening and discussion of the documentary, Latino Americans, 500 Years of History Episode 1: Foreigners in their Own Land (1565-1880) at Santa Fe College. This event was lead by Dr Bill Little. He is a professor of Romance Languages and Latin American Literature and has a rich background involving Latin American history. He has taught at California University, West Point, and currently teaches Latin American Studies at Santa Fe College. He has studied abroad in countries including Spain and Mexico.

When it comes to culture, Dr. Little has a lot to say. He believes culture is powerful and we cannot avoid it. According to Professor Little “It precedes us accompanies us, and pushes us forward.” Culture helps us cope with the present and helps us create the future. In terms of Spanish culture, Dr. Little suggests that we are the foreigners to their land who have made them feel like foreigners in their own land. He elaborates on this idea by giving examples of Spanish missions that occurred between 1565 and 1823. Dr. Little mentions the missions in New Mexico and Texas but he gives a little more detail about the missions in Florida and California. He informs everyone about how the missions in Florida were scattered without any true pattern. In California, the missions were founded all along the coast. Professor Little jumps back to New Mexico and states that it is a bilingual state. He continues to elaborate on this fact by promoting multilingual skills. He suggests that learning more than one language is extremely human. By this, he is explaining how people have branched from one common language to several different languages and from those languages, hundreds of languages have resulted. The human desire to communicate is astonishing. Due to the variances in language, translators have come about to reconnect and allow easier communication. Overtime, Spanish, and English have combined to form a sort of in-between style of communication known as Spanglish.

Back to Latin culture, the first European language spoken in the New World was Spanish. The British, French, and Russians all came after the Spanish branched out in the New World. Along with every single Latin American, the Latinos from the PBS showing were robbed of their property because of racism. Once colonists and other Europeans began coming to the “New World”, the Spanish government decided to send out more people on missions. They spread all throughout Florida, Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Unfortunately, after Mexico won its independence from Spain, the Mexico American War had a huge loss for Mexico. Mexico had to surrender half of its territory to the foreigners who were expanding and robbing them of their hard earned land.

During the PBS video, the lives of proud Latinos, who were wronged by Americans, were discussed. Each of them profited from their Latin missions but once Americans moved in, their lives were shattered. Many of them lost their wealth or power status due to Americans. One of the people in the film was a Latina who originally gained two ranches from Mexico and was able to purchase a third. When the Americans colonists invaded, she was forced to abandon her property and live in poverty. Several of the other Latinos in the video had similar experiences. All of them involved some sort of mistreatment from the American mostly due to racism. Each situation shared similarities but the most prominent similarity was the fact that they were treated like foreigners in their own land. Their Latino hospitality was abused and they suffered for welcoming these American aliens.

Personally, I feel that Latin American history is the root of American history. We cheated them out of what was truly theirs to begin with. Not only were they judged racially, even thought they were the original owners of the land, but they were also kicked out of much territory. They should be the ones kicking us out of their land. Latinos were nothing but hospitable to their fellow human beings, who in turn made the Latinos subject to racism. I find all of this an outrage! I think the least we can do is put forth a little more effort to bridge the gap between the American and Latino communities.

Conclusively, Latin American culture should be more welcome in the United States. Professor Little supports and encourages more understanding and unity between the American and Latino culture. Rather than having such a great social gap between Americans and Latinos, more unity would provide for a stronger society and create a greater bond between people despite their cultural background.

#NewYork