Hillary Abad-Carrillo

Mr.Sokoloff
Modern World History
Period C
5/24/21

Introduction
Throughout Ecuador's history, there has been a line of numerous presidents throughout
history that have made impactful and not so impactful things to the country. To this day, Ecuador
still struggles with maintaining a true president. There have been many presidents that have run
things in a not so conventional way. Corruption being the number one thing that leads this
country amongst other things. Overtime, Ecuador's and its people have suffered from having an
unstable government because of it’s presidents. Examples of this are that there is still corruption
in the system despite promises presidents make, and while the economy improves for a short
time, each president leaves office doing more harm than good.
My mother is from Ecuador, she has experienced the mistreatment of all the presidents
she has lived through in the time she lived there. She has witnessed these presidents either
bringing Ecuador more to the ground or trying to help it. When she lived there, that was a long
time ago. Time passes by and of course there could be a chance of change on how things work in
Ecuador, but they can also get worse. With the actions these presidents make, this puts people
into fleeing the country. Even though my mother did not go too much in detail on her thoughts
about the presidents she’s lived through, she does have her opinions on former presidents. That
made me question why so many people, not just my mother, have negative and positive thoughts
on these leaders, and overall the government. With the research that I’ve done, there has been a
great deal of corruption surrounding the government. Not to mention the amount of presidents
Ecuador has had in short amounts of time.
An overview of what I’ve done for the project is this: I conducted an interview with my
mother in spanish about her immigration story. She told me some breathtaking stories about a
defining moment in her life when she walked her way to America. This interview had a lot of
amazing moments, but the most defining moments were included in a transcript that I made. I
pulled out the most important parts of the interview and wrote them down. I also translated the
transcript to english for our non spanish speakers. When doing the research, I looked through
countless articles and websites to pick out the best ones. Trying to find the most reliable sources
was tricky since there is so much information out there about all these presidents but I made it
work. When organizing my research, I kept everything on track using NoodleTools. I also used
note cards to pluck out observations of the interview, and articles I read. I also analyzed the
article and the interview as well.
 Research and Synthesis
In the interview that I conducted, my mother talked about her journey to America. The
interview went well but there were some parts she wasn't comfortable talking about. She gave a
general idea of some of the things she went through and didn't go in depth about some stories, it
seems like she left stuff out. When telling stories, she was a bit disorganized and went on a
couple of tangents. She did talk about the reasons why she wanted to leave the country. In the
transcript, time frame 1:13 - 1:42, my mother talks about how curious she was about the U.S. and
what was all the buzz about it. She also mentioned how people were so brave and fearless about
crossing the border. She recalls that it was very dangerous. There is a lot of crime and death
around that area and it was very difficult to pass through. She also said in the interview that in
2003 is the year that she immigrated to the U.S. and she doesn’t exactly remember if there were
big amounts of people immigrating to America. She ventured off through many countries such as
Peru and Costa Rica in order to get to the mexican border. Even though her intentions as to
leaving the country weren’t as intense as others, there are many people that have different
intentions or situations that they needed to leave the country. Such as trying to escape the bad
direction presidents are taking the country to, or trying to escape the economic downfall that
presidents are leading the country to1.
As it was mentioned above, my mother didn’t go in depth on many stories she mentioned
in the interview, there were a couple like this that I’m about to talk about now. Even though she
left a couple of stories, she did go in depth about this one story. In the time frame 6:20 - 7:33, she
discusses a time when she was in a truck with a ton of other people.2 She expressed how scared
she was and how she was terrified to get seperated with my dad, who also joined her on the
journey. Thankfully, everything turned out to be fine and they didn’t get separated. Even though
this occurrence turned out to be okay and everyone was safe, sometimes that is not the way it
ends. People die doing dangerous things in order to get one step further on their way to america.
When you think about it, who put them in that situation, that they need to go through troubling
obstacles just to get away from something, that something it the presidents that are guiding the
country. These presidents don’t always make right decisions in what's best for the people, and
basically force the people to leave and find a better future. By doing so, it makes them go
through dangerous situations and could ultimately lead them to death.
For my topic, like I said before, I will be exploring Presidents through Ecuadorian
history. All of these presidents share a couple of things in common. Not only the fact that there is
almost no stable president that has completed a full term, the presidents that were elected have
trouble helping the economy of the country. As well as always involving corruption in the
government even though they promise to make the government a more clean and honest system.
With the research that I’ve done with the presidents that were a staple in Ecuador's presidential
history, they have all impacted Ecuador in a good or bad way. For example, José María Velasco
1
Carrillo, Cristina. Interview by Hillary Abad-Carrillo. Hamden, Connecticut,
United States. May 10, 2021.
2
Carrillo, Cristina. Interview by Hillary Abad-Carrillo. Hamden, Connecticut,
United States. May 10, 2021.
Ibarra, who was president 5 times, and despite being out the presidential chair, tried to restore
Ecuador's name3. Even though what he tried to do was good, not all presidents with good
intentions ended up the same. Gustavo Noboa was also a president and he made a promise to
restore Ecuador's economy, a couple of short years later, he was caught for mishandling the
country's forigen debt, which did not help with the economic decline Ecuador was going through
at the time.4 In more recent times, Rafeal Correa is one of the more known Presidents in Ecuador.
He lasted many years as a President. He made a big impact on the economy and overall on
Ecuadorian livelihood. Around the time his term was ending he was caught for corruption. As
news went down about his scandal, the economy once again started to decline because of what
got out.5 The following are presidents that I have briefly mentioned and going more in depth
about how these presidents managed the country.

Lack of stability
Presidents through the decades in Ecuador aren’t as stable as you may think. Unstable
presidency is something not unfamiliar to the Ecuadorian people. There have been many cases of
presidents only lasting a year or even a couple of months. For example, a man named José María
Velasco Ibarra. Ibarra was president 5 times. In 1934–1935, 1944–1947, 1952–1956, 1960–1961,
and 1968–1972, and only in 1952–1956 did he complete a full term. In his four other terms he
was removed by military force6. José María Velasco Ibarra first became president in 1933, he
traveled around Latin America restoring Ecuador's global image. He was a conservative as well
as part of the radical liberal party. Later, he was exiled by the military in 1935, this was because
the military wanted to block the election because they didn’t want a radical to run the country.
This became a habit everytime he runned. He would become president for a year or so, then be
taken out by the military to only run again the next year. Ecuador has a long relationship with not
having stable presidents. Elections are always being held and there were a bunch of times when
there were military leaders fill in as president.

Mismanagement and corruption

After president Jamil Mahuad was taken out of presidency by military coup in January
21, 2000, Gustavo Noboa became president, (Solely because he was vice president of Jamil
Mahuad at the time). The Article, reported on January 23rd 2001, says Jamil Mahuad was
overthrown by military coup. In the article it says Ecuadorians are accustomed to tumultuous
leadership changes. Around 2001, Ecuador was experiencing economic decline. This has been at
its worst since the 1930s. When people greeted Gustavo with his new presidency, people were
3
José María Velasco Ibarra, wikipedia, March 11, 2021,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Velasco_Ibarra
4
Gustavo Noboa, wikipedia, May 3rd, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Noboa
5
José María León Cabrera, Ecuador’s Former President Convicted on Corruption Charges, The New York Times, April 7, 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.html
6
Armed Forces Oust Ecuador President In a Bloodless Coup, The New York Times, Feb 16, 1972
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/16/archives/armed-forces-oust-ecuador-president-in-a-bloodless-coup-ecuadors.html
still skeptical with the promises Gustavo made with helping the country. The people are very
used to seeing mismanagement and corruption in the system. Residents of Ecuador, such as
Soyla Laiza, say “nothing happened at all, the corrupt are still running things.” implying that
Gustavo hasn’t made any positive changes, and the corrupt are still in control.7 Noboa's main
mission was to revive the Ecuadorian economy. Funny enough, later on he was accused of
mishandling the country's forigen debt. 8 After his term ended, he denied the accusations, was
under house arrest in 2005, later on, was brought to court and was charged. This is another
example of how presidents have promised that they’ll better the country, but that has been the
same statement for past presidents. Nothing has changed and it keeps going like a continuous
cycle.

Raffel Correa is a former President of Ecuador from 2007-2017. Raffel Correa is a very
controversial President. Even though he has done good to the country, for example, he managed
to raise the economy, reduce poverty, and raise the minimum wage, which he credited to his
government policies. Critics do say that this only happened because the oil prices increased.9
When the prices dropped, international pressure caused the economy to go down. With this,
Rafel correa was ending his term, and his career, with doing more harm and leaving the country
stranded in economic ruins. Correa, near the end of his term, was convicted for corruption
charges, accepting 8 million dollars in bribes.10The article reported that Correa was banned from
politics for 25 years, but also said that he wanted to run again for president in 2021, but of
course, with his sentence that is impossible. Raffel is a perfect example of someone who started
off doing good to the country and trying to resolve some of the biggest problems the country has.
In reality, he was running things very dirty, and once the news got out about his business with
corruption, he left his presidency doing more harm than good. Leaving the people of Ecuador
hopeless and wondering if there will ever be an honest president.

Analysis of Research and Sources

When researching my topic and researching about my family, it was hard at first. Like I
mentioned before, my mother didn’t really go in depth about how the country was around that
time. She didn’t really talk about presidents and how they were managing the country in the

7
Bajack, Frank. "Still Not Much Hope in Ecuador." Ap News. Last modified January
23, 2000. https://apnews.com/article/1e71c639a85c27d4b926eadefc382677
8
"Gustavo Noboa." Wikipedia. Accessed may 3, 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Noboa.
9
León Cabrera, José María. "Ecuador's Former President Convicted on Corruption
Charges." The New York Times. Last modified April 7, 2020.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/
ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.html.
10
León Cabrera, José María. "Ecuador's Former President Convicted on Corruption
Charges." The New York Times. Last modified April 7, 2020.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/
ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.html.
interview. Since this was the case, it was difficult to know what part I should focus on more.
Outside of the interview, she did have her own opinions on the presidents and how they ran
things. She had nothing but nice things to say about them. On the other hand my father, who was
not interviewed, also had his opinions that contradicted what my mom said about them. That got
me thinking that I should explore how these presidents did their job.

When conducting an oral history interview, I was nervous at first since I’ve never really
conducted an interview before, especially since this interview was going to be very important for
the rest of the project. There was a lot of pressure regarding this interview to go well. Trying to
come up with good questions that were going to pull out important information from my mother
was difficult. Overall, when actually doing the interview, it went pretty smoothly, hearing back
the tape, there was almost no part that seemed forced, it sounded like a regular conversation.
What I would've done differently is possibly helping my mom go more in depth with the stories
she was telling. Even though she wasn’t too comfortable exposing a lot of the things she went
through, I was still very shocked with the details she let out. As for the research that I did on my
historical topic, that was also pretty difficult. There wasn’t too much on these presidents, besides
wikipedia, which turned out I relied too much on. I had to search a lot of the questions in spanish
so websites from Ecuador itself would pop up and I could get a better perspective from people
that were actually in Ecuador in those times. Finding newspaper articles as well was difficult too.
I wasn’t sure if these articles were telling the truth, but luckily I eventually found some pretty
reliable sources.

When it came to researching my historical topic, it was difficult. When researching José
María Velasco Ibarra, it was tough finding information on this former president. Since I knew
little about this person, I had to rely on Wikipedia to state the straightforward facts to have a
general idea of what type of president he was. Despite wikipedia not having the best reputation
when it came to reliability, that page had many useful uses. With the help of wikipedia and doing
some lateral reading, I did find a news clipping from The New York Times. I think I would have
to say this source was reliable since it was a newspaper clipping from the 70s, which was the
time that Ibarra was president, and The New York Times is overall a trustworthy source.

Researching Raffel Correa wasn’t all too difficult. Raffel is a well known president in
Ecuador. There were tons of articles and web pages having information about him. It all came
down to what websites holded the most reliable information. The sources that I found were very
useful. When researching the corruption scandal that he had, an article of the New York Times
showed up breaking down what exactly happened about the corruption as well including some
background with what he has done to help the country. It gave me a perfect idea on how Correa
truly ran things from the outside and how he was secretly running things closed doors. Despite
finding a very useful source, I personally did not know much about this former president. Using
wikipedia was very helpful giving me a quick overview about this president.
 The sources that I found talking about Gustavo Noboa were very helpful. The website
called AP News gave a very good description about the day Noboa became president. It did
really well stating the facts and by adding points of view from people that were actually
experiencing the ruling of Gustavo Noboa. It was interesting to see the perspective of people that
actually live there and get a more insightful view of the people. I also used Wikipedia to get an
overview of Gustavo as well.

Further Research and Study Section

When conducting the research for the historical topic, it was tough. From the start of the
process, I had to find the connection between the interview and the historical topic, which was an
issue. I did eventually find a topic. Researching this topic was a bit difficult since there weren’t a
lot of articles about these presidents that were written in english, I had to read some spanish
written articles but those turned out to be not so helpful. I relied on Wikipedia more than I
wanted to do. The reason this being is that there weren't any websites that got straight to the facts
about these presidents. The other reason why I relied on it so much was because I had no
knowledge about these presidents prior to the research. I think next time, I’ll try to stay away
from wikipedia or try to do more lateral reading. I think I would spend more time on finding
more articles. I did use other articles that weren’t just wikipedia, but having more patiences next
time could be more helpful.
The connection between the interview and the historical topic is pretty loose. Like I
mentioned before, it was difficult to find a way to connect the 2. I think that connecting the
interview to the historical topic didn’t go as well planned as I thought it would. Then again, it's
not unexpected, the interview itself wasn’t giving much material. I could’ve possibly done
another interview, but my mom was only comfortable letting out the details that she did, so the
second interview wouldn’t have uncovered much more.
Possible further research on my topic would be to possibly get more points of view of
people that actually experienced these presidents and explore whether they were affected by the
way these presidents managed the country or not. Another idea could be to possibly research
further if there were any good presidents that did good to the country no matter how long ago it
was. It would be interesting to see from what point in the timeline things started to mess up.
 Bibliography

Bajack, Frank. "Still Not Much Hope in Ecuador." Ap News. Last modified January 23, 2000.
https://apnews.com/article/1e71c639a85c27d4b926eadefc382677.
            An article of the time when Gustavo Noboa was elected president of Ecuador in
January of 2000.

Carrillo, Cristina. Interview by Hillary Abad-Carrillo. Hamden, Connecticut, United States. May
10, 2021.
            Interview about my mothers immigration story and her Journey to America. She
talks about story's while she was traveling to the U.S. and the struggles during her
journey.
Audience perspective: a personal story about a immigrant

"Ecuadorian Americans." Wikipedia. Accessed May 12, 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_Americans.
            explanation of spike in immigration in ecuador in the 60s

"José María Velasco Ibarra." Wikipedia. Accessed March 11, 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Velasco_Ibarra.
            bibliography de José María Velasco Ibarra.

León Cabrera, José María. "Ecuador's Former President Convicted on Corruption Charges." The
New York Times. Last modified April 7, 2020.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.
html.
            A detailed article about the Corruption former president Raffael Correa did

New York Times, ed. "Armed Forces Oust Ecuador President in a Bloodless Coup." The New
York Times. Last modified February 16, 1972.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/16/archives/armed-forces-oust-ecuador-president-in-a-
bloodless-coup-ecuadors.html.
            newspaper clipping of an announcement made in the new york times newspaper.

"Rafael Correa." Wikipedia. Accessed May 3, 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.
html.
            Rafael Correa's story from the beginning of his presidency to his final days of
being the president of Ecuador

Wikipedia, ed. "Gustavo Noboa." Wikipedia. Accessed may 3, 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Noboa.
            An overview on Gustavo Noboa's life and his presidential life.