IN DEFENSE OF

DIV
The Logic, Rhetoric, and Resistance of
Colonialism in Latin America and the
Caribbean—and Why it Matters
 Roadmap
Articulating the Utility of the UW Diversity Minor via HSTLAC 185

Thesis Why is the DIV minor important?

Case Study: HSTLAC 185 Themes and content proving student benefit

Applications and Significance Skills and relevance of HSTLAC 185 in student lives

Conclusion Summary and Underscoring

THESIS
The Diversity (DIV) Minor is an essential mechanism for
the development of student capacity to conduct critical
analyses of the origins and echoes of systems of racism,
misogyny, and classism; ultimately serving as a
foundation of knowledge and skill for identifying and
deconstructing these systems in our current day.
CASE STUDY
HSTLAC 185: A Demonstration
of DIV’s Importance
Three Prongs of Study
● The HSTLAC 185 course covers the breadth of Latin American and Caribbean geography, as well as massive breadth
over time
● As such, many course topics are notably distinct in time and place and are instead unified by their relationship to
the project of colonialism
○ Three major unifying themes/relationships:

Logic Rhetoric Resistance

How is colonial rationale How does colonialism What mediums does
racialized and gendered? conceive of femininity, resistance take? How
How do these intersect? indigeneity, and does it gain and maintain
What arguments repeat sovereignty? What momentum? What
themselves in colonial language is used to draw makes resistance
structures? hierarchies? successful?
‘Logic’ of Colonialism
Burns: Colonial Habits
Colonial Habits unearths the
gendered structure of the convent
system and the conception of
female sexuality as a colonial tool.
● Mestiza daughters sent to
convents in order to
become “culturally
Spanish”
○ Used as conduits
of Spanish-ness
in colonial project
● Infantilized perception of
mestiza women that they
would adopt Spanish
culture “like children” (21)
● Mestizo boys interpreted
as threat to colonial
project; masculinity
deemed an animating
force of rebellion
The Plantation Martinez: The Black
Economy Blood of New Spain
The emergence of plantation
Martinez illuminates the racialized
economies is intertwined with
nature of colonial rationale and its
colonial ideology.
relationship to sexuality and
● Perception of economic
genetics.
gain as paramount and
● Limpieza de sangre:
virtuous
blood-purity hierarchy that
○ True “innovation”
associated Black people
of capitalism is
with disloyalty
violence and
● Enslavement paradox:
dehumanization
Black enslaved people
● “I am the land” vs “I own
could not “redeem”
the land”
themselves via conversion
○ Deforestation, soil
○ Enslavement
depletion
thought to
○ Burden of
compromise the
environmental
“sincerity” of
havoc falls on
gesture
marginalized
● Greater legal rights for
● Enslaved labor cyclically
Indigenous people than
fuels more racist hierarchy
Black
distinctions
Rhetoric of Colonialism
Danner: The Massacre
at El Mozote
Danner’s text on El Mozote sheds
light on the language of contagion
used as justification for the
abhorrent violence committed.
● El Mozote was not known
as an extremely
revolutionary area
○ “Nestled” within
other
revolutionary
zones
○ Conception of
leftist ideology as
commutable
disease motivated
massacre
● US played major role in
violence; motivated by
similar idea of “disease
spreading”
Midterm: Chazotte’s
Account of Haiti
Our midterm assignment allowed us
to explore primary texts such as
Chazotte’s, a reflection on a
Dessalines-run Haiti and violence on
the Island. Chazotte was a white
French survivor the massacre in
Jeremie, 1804.
● Chazotte uses comparison
to animals as a tactic to
dehumanize Dessalines
○ Relationship to
modern
stereotypes of
Black anger
● Animalistic
characterization deployed
to suggest incapability of
Black leadership; no
reckoning with centuries of
colonial violence
Un Granito de Arena:
“Human Capital”
The documentary Un Granito de
Arena covers the privatization of
education in Mexico and the role of
international actors and
globalization in making education
inaccessible.
● “Human capital” is a
repeated emphasis of the
film within the context of
globalization
○ Corporate and
international
players engage
themselves in
order to advance
their monetary
bottom line
● Rhetorical means of
distancing real lives of
people from a “political
debate”
Resistance of Colonialism
Cowling: As a Woman
and As a Mother
Cowling’s work reveals enslaved
Cuban and Brazilian mothers’
framework to sue for freedom.
● “Free womb” laws changed
precedent of children’s
status following their
mothers’
○ Not liberating in
practice
● Used status as mother
within patriarchal context
to mobilize and related
enslaved mothers to
Mothers, broadly
● Enslaved women
concentrated in more
urban areas; interacted
with free people more
frequently than men
enslaved in rural areas
Haitian Revolution
Successful revolt of enslaved people
of Haiti resulting in a Black Republic.
● “Black Republic for Black
People”
● Affirms Black humanity;
agency
○ Terrifies colonial
actors
● Demographically, enslaved
people massively
outweighed
white/slave-owning
population
○ Brutality of
conditions—early
death rate,
constant demand
for bodies
○ System of terror
Indigenous Rebellions
Over 100 revolts since the 1740s;
pre-context of Bourbon Reforms.
● Comuneros - New Granada,
1780
○ Making/declaring
space within
colonial structure
● Tupac Amaru II
○ Neo-Inca revival
○ Multiethnic
○ Spanish elite paint
as “race war”
○ Results in:
anti-native
measures and
erasure
● Anti-creole vs anti-Spanish:
Karati Rebellion
APPLICATIONS AND
SIGNIFICANCE
HSTLAC 185 as a Toolkit for
Analysis
Skills and Competencies
● Assessing reliability and presented narratives in primary sources
○ A Conquistador Recounts the Beginning of the Campaign to Defeat the Aztec Empire
■ Narratives about Dona Marina
○ Midterm exercise: Haitian Revolution primary sources
● Deconstructing arguments, identifying sources of evidence, and evaluating persuasive efficacy
○ Colonial Habits Book Report and Analysis
○ Un Granito de Arena Documentary Review
● Collaborative case-building and investigation
○ Fluid classroom dialogue
○ Discussion board discourse
○ Quiz section activities
CONCLUSION
The HSTLAC 185 course is totemic of the DIV Minor’s value to
students. These courses empower students to meaningfully
articulate their observations and analyses of oppressive
systems across time and geography, ultimately instilling the
importance of critical thinking, collaboration, and advocacy.
REFERENCED WORKS
Camillia Cowling, “As a Slave Woman and as a Mother’: Women and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro,” Social History, Vol. 36,
Issue 3, 294-311

Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).

María Elena Martínez, “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico,” The
William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3 (July 2004), 479-520

Mark Danner, The Massacre at El Mozote : A Parable of the Cold War (Vintage Books, 1994)

Lectures of Professor Rodriguez-Silva, Gender, Race, and Class in Latin America and the Caribbean (2022).

Peter S. Chazotte, “The Massacre in Jeremie in 1804”.

Un Granito de Arena (Dir. Jill Freidberg, 2005)