Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

328 reframing latin america
Catarina down the road has never recovered from the fi ghting and to this
day the people are very strange and evil. They still shoot people they don’t
like and are very unfriendly to strangers. It’s not that they would kill you
if you walked down the street but they would ask you to identify yourself
if they didn’t know you. They don’t like any outsiders in their village and
they still speak mejicano, even the chamaquitos (diminutive of chamaco
in Nahuatl for “children”). We don’t have much to do with them although
some of our villagers are related to them. Most of them aren’t much better
than animals. They are the ones who come here for water but when we go to
their mountain to cut wood they charge us hundreds of pesos. That is why
we don’t like to give them water. They are bad people [. . .].
Chapter XI. The System [. . .]
Nowadays education is everything. You need it to get out of the village; you
need it to get a good job; you need it for everything. But it costs so much
to go beyond high school that few from our position can ever make it. Our
ancestors used to say that it wasn’t with school that one takes care of himself
but with life’s experiences. Well, that philosophy is fi ne if you never
want to leave the village. For many it is a punishment to have to live their
entire lives here in San Antonio. Every person I know who has been really
successful in life and has made a lot of money has gotten a good education
and has left the village. Few of us would stay here if it weren’t for the serenity
and the security that San Antonio gives us. Life is hectic outside of the
valley but that is the price you must be willing to pay if you want to get
ahead [. . .].
Margarito is in Tabasco working as a teacher. He is close to the Guatemalan
border and works with indígenas (Indian, one who speaks an Indian
dialect). They speak their own language and eat monkeys. I could never eat
a monkey; they’re too much like seres humanos (human beings). We speak
Spanish and mejicano. We are not indígenas because we speak Spanish. The
people he works with have a lot of strange customs which are difficult for
us to understand. They think entirely different from us; they are very, very
poor, sleep on boards, and eat monkeys; and they are unfriendly to outsiders.
Margarito says that he has never been invited into one of their houses.
They hide from him when they see him coming. All of the school teachers
come from the outside. Although hard on the young teachers, spending a
year there is good training. When they get back to civilization they appreciate
their permanent assignments [. . .].
Nowadays you have to have more than secundaria [high school] to
teach. You need a university degree. That has made it very difficult for the