Other questions:
- What is the "Big Lie"?
- Who is her audience?
- What does she have to say about the drug war?
- This was published in The New York Review of Books, a US publication. Why is this complicated story of crime in Latin America relevant to US readers?
This essay brings up a person by the name of Nestor. He is introduced as a small-time gold miner who then turns to a life of crime. He does this because it is the only way to rise in the ranks of society in his country, Columbia. Another reason for his change in lifestyle is that his brothers were both murdered by terrorists, or the guerillas. One was an innocent man like Nestor working with him as a gold miner. The other a junkie impeding on their turf selling drugs. The author tries to shed light on Nestor being that he didn't want the lifestyle he currently has but was rather forced into it by the society around him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stephen Collura. Society puts us in a irrational fixed world where depending on your lifestyle or how you were brought up is positively were you will stay.
DeleteStephen, i agree with your post. when you said "he didn't want the lifestyle he currently has but was rather forced into it by the society around him", we see that with of all the loss and pain surrounding his life and losing those close to him , nestor could have had motive in doing this lifestyle. Many of the people in these situations may have a choice which is either become a victim or join the assailant.
DeleteAlma Guillermoprieto's essay is about how the Latin Americans are being affected from the government. The genre of this story can be historical fiction because it talks about the troops and the journalists. The big lie is when the article said Latin America has the highest homicide rate. She brings a person named Nestor because he was refereed to himself as hemanito which means junkie. It's complicated because there was a lot of information to take in such as the troops, drugs, the government, and the news.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. Guillermoprieto vaguely speaks on the essence of who is deeply affected and why. She somewhat fabricates the stories she researches to intrigue an audience, mainly to gain attribution for herself. She also predominantly makes the decisions to not revisit certain places she previously went to to document the devastating events, but was able to interrogate waking victims' relatives for more answers.
DeleteHi Shiann: How does Guillermoprieto "fabricate" her stories?
DeleteGood, Jonathan, but the genre is nonfiction.
DeleteBig Lie, to me was referred to me as the truth mix with lies like what professor John Talbird said in class. Its a really good lie almost hard to not believe it. This reminds me of what the Government does, so call protect the people more so to protect them selves from us finding classified information about Government, conspiracy. So in a way we could relate to Alma Guillermoprieto. We are fighting a war with hate, discrimination, deception and fake promises.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you since most of the time the governments in the campaigns lie what was promised. They just want to make people believe that they vote for them but coming to reality none of that they fulfill everything is a lie. The only thing they do is only to deceive people since after they are in power they forget what they promised and do not take anything at all, everything becomes a false promise as the author explains in her essay.
DeleteWhat I believe that this article informs us on is the historical devastating events that the author has described on behalf of a notorious drug lord and murderer, in which also the author has gone through some close-call type situations. I believe she had also come to a conclusion that she would not dare to take the risk of experiencing life-threatening events ever again. She is educated in the sense of being informed on what life was like for living victims of these events, such as the massacre. If I was the author, I'd be petrified of traveling to particular locations where my life would be at complete risk, but it is also her job or duty to inform the public as much as she pleases. However, she seems to know exactly how and what she questions, and the types of responses to be expected from relatives of deceased victims, but does so with slight precaution. On the contrary, it isn't exactly her obligation nor place to tap into the past realm of a relative, because she may or may not know that they too have been traumatized by their loved ones being killed through war. She may know little background information on deceased victims where she is only informed by a waking relative, which may vaguely convey the position in which the victim is located at the time.
ReplyDeleteThis essay by Alma Guilermoprieto is about a brutal massacre that occurred in Segovia where many people were killed. It was known that the Mexico's president was involved in the drug wars . Apart from this, the author visited one of the prisoner that was arrested and while she was interviewing him he was nervous and didn't look like a person who could do such violence. Along with this, the prisoner name was Nestor he was gold miner and one of his brother were killed by a six men. "But now I can see how Nestor, if someone had come up to him and handed him a machine gun said, "Let's go shoot some terrorists and here's a little cash." From my point of view it looks like Nestor was doing this to provide and for survival . However ,I think the big lie is saying to every lie their is some kind of truth to it . It cant all be just lie even self its two truths then their is still a truth to this lie. On the other hand , this is a complicated story of crime in Latin American because they are trying to say that everyone thats latin are territories .
ReplyDeleteThe "A Reporting lIfe in Latin America " genre is thriller and tragedy because there was numerous killing in Segovia. Here are my evidence "at least 150,000 of his fellow citizens have died violet, often atrocious, deaths. "In El salvador last year, for example, for every year 100,000 citizens, some fifty people were murdered.Most but not all, were men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight." Along with this, there was an increase in poor families and unqualified women that struggle to keep up hard work. She said that the drug war was invent by Richard Nixon and it brought the violence for 3 reason it made they feel good, if it didn't go that way they wouldn't be popular. If marijuana was selling at the price it costed then it would be cheaper than corn. Also these drugs traffickers are broadcast on television as golden antiheroes.
ReplyDelete-What is Alma Guillermoprieto's essay about? What kind (genre) of essay is it?
ReplyDeleteAlma Guillermoprieto's essay details her career as a reporter living in various countries throughout Latin America. By her account, she calls her writing (during the lecture, not in the published essay) "long-form narrative nonfiction," which is close to my answer, “creative nonfiction.”
-What is the "Big Lie"?
The “Big Lie” is a political tactic of inventing a narrative which must include a kernel of truth or fact to establish credibility - designed to control public perception in order produce a result that is most favorable to the goals or agendas of the political establishment (individuals or media. Guillermoprieto refers to then-candidate Trump’s appeals to a base most receptive to bigoted, racist, and fear-based messages (aggressively exploiting long-held prejudices in this country) simply by invoking certain, very complicated albeit horrific, truths about Latin America and making negative associations with the people who come from (or run from) there.
-Who is her audience?
I think it’s fair to assume that her audience is probably educated Americans and Western Europeans, as she was also reporting for The Guardian.
-What does she have to say about the drug war?
She mentions that the drug war created by President Richard Nixon as a convenient “boogeyman” and rightly points to the bloodshed this has resulted in internationally. The drug trade is responsible for horrendous violence, but she does not neglect to mention that the illegality of the trade is what drives much of costs in dollars and bodies.
-This was published in The New York Review of Books, a US publication. Why is this complicated story of crime in Latin America relevant to US readers?
I say this with respect: ideally I believe as citizens or residents of this country, we really should have an informed understanding of US involvement in Latin America, only then could these issues make more sense to us (much of U.S. policy in Latin America exacerbates the horrific violence and criminal activity experienced all across the continent and has origins in the Monroe Doctrine. I encourage you to listen to a radio interview from last March with journalist Grace Livingstone explaining the history and impact of the Monroe Doctrine https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-march-12-2019/). It’s important that the stories Alma Guillermoprieto tells us not be misread simply as the poor fighting amongst each other in the battle for survival. There is so much more at play here. The more we understand this, the less power the dangerous rhetoric from this administration (and the administrations of the past and in the future, I’m sure!) can have on us. This is not historical fiction, this is real life.
I Agree with what you said about the "big lie". It is most definitely a lie with a hint of truth to it. I also support what you said about Trump using a "big lie" to engage his audience and make them agree with him, that is very true. The big lie is the reason that Trump decided to go through with building the wall in the first place.
DeleteAbsolutely, with bipartisan support!
DeleteAppreciate your comment, thank you.
Nice response, Stephanie. I look forward to listening to this podcast. Thanks for sharing!
DeleteThe essay's genre is investigative journalism. This essay is about how people from another land can easily pass judgement on those they do not know. The author begins their work talking about our president as some "flimflam man". The author then continues with how the president is able to label those that are coming into our country illegally as rapists murderers and drug dealers. While the countries the people are coming from do have a lot of violence, as the meat of the essay will illustrate, there are reasons for this. While the Big Lie has the ring of truth (that foreigners from Latin America are bad hombres), it is only when you see why these people want to leave, do you understand their plight for a better life.
ReplyDeleteWhat Alma Guillermoprieto is saying about the drug trade in America is that it was started by President Nixon "out of nowhere". While that sounds fine on the surface, the real truth is that America (senators and congressmen and those that voted for those officials) voted to enter into the Vietnam war. While American troops needed morphine, a network in which to produce and distribute the drug was needed. America then looked to Mexico and other Latin American countries to help with the demand. When America pulled out if the conflict, the supply was no longer needed. People and gangs then used that same network to run drugs. Just how the people in the drug trade choose to take their cache from point a to z, doing what it takes to to make more money, so to did the voting public when they elected those in charge to bring us to where we are now. The biggest lie is to think only one man is the cause of a societal problem: the insatiable want for drugs in America.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley: This is a good response. I think you're right that to use the phrase "out of nowhere" may be misleading (and may be substituting "Nixon" or "right-wing politician" for "drug war" as the big problem). However, I think that Guillermoprieto is arguing something similar to what you're arguing: that the EFFECTS of the drug war are very complex and that simply pointing to a simple fix: prevent immigration, stop drugs, even legalize drugs is not to recognize the complexity of the issues.
DeleteIn the essay, ¨A Reporting Life in America¨ by Alma Guillermoprieto explains us about violence and corruption. Many people decide to make bad decisions. The main cause is poverty. Most presidents of Latin American countries are corrupt they do nothing to help people. They only charge their money and do not do anything good in the country. Most people decide to leave their countries in search of a better future. Many immigrants cross the border as they need to move their family forward. Upon arriving in this country, most of the time they are discriminated only because they belong to Latin American countries and in many occasions, they are judged and deported unfairly. Fair people pay for bad people. People who are deported or have no job get into gangs and start killing innocent people to earn their daily bread and not fail their bosses. Today it is seen that many young people get involved in these gangs. They begin to kill, rape, steal and sell drugs. They don't care about the damage they are causing in the family; they just care about feeling good. In other words, they see this as a way to get out of trouble.
ReplyDeleteIn the essay, ¨A Reporting Life in America¨ by Alma Guillermoprieto explains us also about drug war. She said that in many countries many people consume drugs since they feel good. They become addictive or illegal. She tells us that many people get into these addictions because they see a quick way to earn money. Many people do it to earn their daily bread. Others instead do it for the profits generated by these addictive products. Every time the sale of drugs is expanding although it is illegal, they are looking for a way to sell them. This complicated story of crime in Latin America is relevant to US readers since they can realize the corruption that exists in the different countries on the part of the governments. How bad decisions affect families. Also, they can realize the suffering of other people by earning their daily bread. What people do to earn money. As the crime progresses every day. The killing of innocent people that is not to blame for anything. They can also realize that today many young people are involved in gangs and for less time they are killed by their bosses.
ReplyDelete