The Caribbean?

Ok, final reflections on the semester spent with students and what was hardest to teach them about Latin America.

1) The Spaniards did not kill all the indigenous. Even the very Aymara girl sitting third row back could not convince some that the Spaniards did not "kill all the Indians." I'm here to report that the black legend is alive and well.

2) There were no Indians when the Spanish arrived. There were no Africans that came as slaves. The students expected total racial solidarity and a complete anti-white coalition coming out of the boats. Slaves and Indians, one insisted, where clearly just stupid because the didn't get together to overthrow the whites. *sigh*

3) The Caribbean is part of Latin America. Again, the Boricua sitting in the back saying how much more he understood Puerto Rico now that he had a Colonial course on Latin America didn't help one iota.

These were the hardest ideas to get across, but in the end, I think I had only one that came out thinking all the Indians were dumb, dead, and certainly not from the Caribbean. Out of eleven students, that's not a bad turn around.

So, in honor of Mr. Incredulous, here's a very merry Christmas ... 70's / 80's style.