Historia

The hardest class I am taking here by FAR is Ciencias Politicas, Political Science. It is not only in Spanish, but unlike my history classes in High School where most classes were a review of old classes along with a little bit of new information, this is a lot of new information that I have never heard of before. And as nice and VERY intelligent as the teacher is, she is quite boring. Up untill Tuesday, I really didn't understand a good majority of the class. I got words, dates, names, and phrases here and there, but the the general concept. On Tuesday however, we (meaning she, for 2 hours) talked about the independencía de Nicaragua. The US sent their military power to Nicaragua to watch them and act as a form of government from 1912-1933, and the people did not like it. Cesar Agusto Sandino lead the first guerrilla war from 1927-1933, eventually running the Marines out of Nicaragua, but the marines set up the Gardia Nacional first, which was their had picked Nicaraguans they thought would be the best at keeping things in line. From this group rose Anastasio Somoza García, one of the worst military dictators of all time. Our teacher said (in english, so we would really get it) "There is a quote from a reporter saying to President Nixon 'Somoza is a son of a bitch.' And Nixon said 'Yes. But he's our son of a bitch.' "

What got to me even more was our talk about Chile already had a stable, democratic governemnt. They just happened to elect for their president Salvador Allende, a man from the socialist party, which ment the US had to intervine. The US through the CIA spent $3,000,000 campaigning agaist him, (and this was in 1970) so when he won they tried to get a group together, to seem that it was unconstitutional for him to be president, when finally in 1973, Allende was overthrow by Agusto Pinochet. The US backed a group to overthrow another countries president. That just the facts. What if someone had done that to the US when were were trying to establish their democracy and a brand new government back in the late 1790s-early 1800s? What gave them the right to do that to another country? I just don't understand.

As long as there was a non communist leader in these countries, the US was happy. They didn't care that people were disappearing, or the government was corrupt, or any of the things the US government VERY MUCH cares about for their people. Where was this information when we were learning history in school? How have i lived in this country for 21 years, and not have known about it? Was i ignorant to the knowledge, or was it never taught to me? I remember learning that Pinochet was not a nice man, and lots of people died in Chile because of him. But i didn't know our country was responsible for that.

One thing my mother asked me about one of my first days here was about the Native Americans of North America. She said that from what she has heard they were very simiar to the Incans, ans she would Love to learn more about them. Now, I really enjoyed learning about the Native American's in hs, but the only things we learned about were: Thanksgiving, sickness to them from europe, Squanto, taking land without asking, Sacajawea, reservations, and the trail of tears. Where is the other information? Where is their life, their history, their story? And once again, why have i only learned the sugar coated version of it?

I talk practically every day with my dear friend Laura about these issues, and of course those of development. We both have a huge desire to learn more and do more. To fix what has happened in this world. How can we fix this?