Paul Gelles Water And Power Analysis

lands and sometimes on building projects or in mining.” (World of the Inca). Thus the Inca expected

     In chapter seven, the issue of water is seen rehashed yet again for one. Adelita Sandoval, whom Hellman interviews, shares her reasons for escaping to Tijuana, due to “a violent alcoholic husband” (pg.162), and the new life she began there. Her willingness to work in any situation enabled Sandoval to adjust quickly to her new environment. She sought out employment like everyone else, in what is known as a maquilina. “Mostly foreign-owned, these factories were constructed under the special tariff arrangements of the Border Industrialization Program.” (pg. 163) Sandoval paints a vivid picture of the long and monotonous

Steven J. Stern’s text, Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest, highlights from beginning to end Spain’s conquest of the Andean people while articulating the transformation of the relationship between these two peoples. He illustrates how Spain’s efforts toward colonialism of the Andes, transformed the natives from a self-sufficient group of people into an oppressed caste system known as “Indians.” Additionally, he introduces the idea that the Spanish needed to break the indigenous and gain their favor in order successfully establish dominance over them and their land. While arguing this, he offers several facts, which contradict the black legend associated with the Spanish and their means of conquest.

There have been many instances throughout history in which indigenous people have unwillingly suffered the consequences of foreigners’ interaction with their culture. In the case of the Huaorani two foreign groups, the oil companies and the missionaries, invaded their land and gravely affected the life they led in the Ecuadorian amazon. In the book Savages Joe Kane gives a firsthand account at how the Huaorani fight to preserve their land and traditional way of life.

For this paper water structures and infrastructures were selected as focus points because the longer we wait to fix issues with them, the more expensive it will get, in other words, we are in a race against time. Studying the past it is easy to see how water availability made population explode in an area such as Southern California, where savvy marketing and great politics made it happen. Particularly, for Los Angeles and for the purposes of public narrative, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert does a great job at understanding and identifying the politics and key figures in getting water to Los Angeles. Great hydrologic structures were created using both manpower and water politics. It is important to state that there are connections between water, politics, environment, and geography when analyzing what the biggest problems involving water structures and infrastructures (Reisner.) We must think of water as both a socio-political issue and a natural resource, whose fate is molded by the understanding of its connectivity to itself, man-made structures, geography, environment, and society. The classes taken in this program have taught us ideals that in order to become a great water resource manager, one must master the political and scientific knowledge to make decisions that are prosperous for society and the environment. Furthermore, one must know the United States’ hydrological history in order to gain manipulation upon the system that makes it both thrive and deteriorate.

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is arguably the most important novel of the Mexican Revolution because of how it profoundly captures the atmosphere and intricacies of the occasion. Although the immediate subject of the novel is Demetrio Macias - a peasant supporter of the Mexican Revolution -, one of its extensive themes is the ambivalence surrounding the revolution in reality as seen from a broader perspective. Although often poetically revered as a ‘beautiful’ revolution, scenes throughout the novel paint the lack of overall benevolence even among the protagonist revolutionaries during the tumultuous days of the revolution. This paper will analyze certain brash characteristics of the venerated revolution as represented by Azuela’s

In Latin America there are several issues that impede the reconciliation of citizen values. To this end, land tenure and management are topics at the forefront of political discussion in this region. Property rights, methods of distribution and governance along with discrimination and inequalities are all included in this topic. The Mexican journey of creating a unified nation is no exception to this pattern. The nation has been subject to foreign invasions, slavery, exploitation of land and resources, and dominating political regimes. The battles for change in political structures during the Mexican Revolution, colonization, and the post-independence period have had socio-economic and environmental effects for Mexico. These battles extended over decades and the hardships of the process remain with the people to this day. Christopher Boyer’s article Old Loves, New Loyalties demonstrates these social and political effects of the Mexican Revolution and the violence with which change was wrought. Matthew Vitz’s The Lands with Which We Shall Struggle addresses the tension in state development due to social rights and property rights and the environmental impacts associated with that tension. Karen Caplan refers to the complications in governance because of differing values and their effects on society in her article The Legal Revolution in Town Politics. Finally, Héctor Calleros-Rodríguez’s Land, Conflict, and Political Processes highlights more modern areas of tension as

1. Before Francisco Pizarro began the Spanish conquest in 1532, the Incan empire dominated the Andes Mountain region. An emperor who demanded strict obedience ruled the land. All business was run by the state, which could draft citizens for its projects. The Inca, terracing the landscape and irrigating the crops, farmed the mountainsides. The Inca were brilliant engineers, whose roadways included bridges. The city of Machu Picchu is an example of their skill with tools like the plumb bob and wooden roller, which they used for in heavy construction. Hundreds of years after their civilization was subdued by the Spanish, the descendants of the once-dominate Incas make up about 50 percent of Peru’s population.

In the late 1500’s Francisco Toledo, Spanish Viceroy of Peru, implemented many reforms centralizing the colonial government. He implemented regulations that grouped the natives into small settlements or villages, much like those seen in Europe, with grid like streets, a central plaza that faced the church, and a jail, etc. The Indians resisted these villages and many even fled. In the face of Indian resistance the Spanish authorities planned on using the Kurakas’ traditional power over the labor and goods of the Indigenous people to benefit the state by gaining control over these societies and using these goods and services of the natives as forms of payment to the state.

First, I will give a brief history of the Dirty War, as I feel it is necessary to understand the landscape at this time and what influenced this collective conscious, followed by a discussion and outline of Dussel’s direct experience and observations surrounding Latin America during this incredibly tumultuous period of time. The essay concludes with a summary of how these principles were utilized in Argentina during and after the Dirty War and how education and open dialogue has influenced the character and the direction of those communities effected, today.

The major claim of the author: the central claim of LaDuke in this article is that the monumental destruction and devaluation of Indian land and its ecosystem over time invariably affects the cultural, social, economic, and political fabric of a community. LaDuke set out to chronicle the historical struggle and fight that has been a part of the life of an Indian, and still is today. In her article, one of her claims is that “the ongoing relationship between indigenous culture and the land is central to most native environmental struggles” (LaDuke 1999, 88).

“Thus were the Peruvians made the sad victims of a greedy people who at first showed them only good faith and even friendship” (Gaffigny 10).

Milagro is a small town 87 miles east from Albuquerque, northern New Mexico. There is a combative, feisty and grumpy native, named Joe Mondragon, who find s himself at his father’s land. Illegally and carefully Joe taps on to the irrigation channel and decides to work the land and grow beans. As the neighbors observe in this poor old town, issues erupt against the developers and Joe, which then the whole town and local people also get involved. Ladd Devine is the rich developer and his plan is to create a new resort. The folks in Milagro feel abused and use of water laws doesn’t permit them to use.

With the abundance of clean water in Seattle, civilians would go into shock if they suddenly lost access to the utility. The fictional events in the film Tambien la Lluvia take place during the Cochabamba Water Wars, in which the city government of Cochabamba dramatically raised the rates of water bills by over 35%, which sparked violent riots among the lower class. This film explores a question that concerns our environment’s limited resources: How and should the world ration and conserve fresh water?

“Open Veins of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano primarily focuses on historical events following the “discovery” and colonization of Latin America. This book however, unlike many others has very distinct and contrasting ideas. In his historical piece, Galeano incorporates many peculiar ideas that have since caused controversy following the publishing of the book in the year 1973. As we examine the cover, the subtitle (“Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent”) gives us an antecedent of our authors viewpoint on the subject and what’s to come later in the book. Without a doubt, one of the major themes and the books main purpose is to clarify the events that took place in Latin America involving the pillage of land and natural resources by foreigners. In his “Seven Years Later” segment of the book, Galeano claims that he wanted to uncover lies and things that have been hidden in the history books. Galeano also wants to uncover the social, economic, and political disparity that Latin American indigenous people were/are facing compared to and as a direct result of foreigners who were/are benefitting and prospering from Latin American land and people.