Theories of Mixture

I found the Cosmic Race to be a bit offensive in the way it categorizes people by their color and stresses the mixture as something intrinsically important. Mostly it just seemed out of touch with what is real and off base with it's presupposition that eliminating the concept of race is a way towards equality. I especially found it confusing that it referred to Atlantis which I thought was widely recognized as a myth in the academic world. I don't think that race as a general concept is worth talking about at this point in human civilization. In certain contexts it can be an interesting topic but I don't see what can be gained by dwelling on it as a general topic. People, especially in an international city like Vancouver, have diverse backgrounds and heritage but it doesn't necessarily have any implications on how they live their life on a day to day basis. I liked Peter Wade's article about mestizaje because it had interesting things to say about music and culture and how they mix in relation to different influences. Instead of focusing on the racial mixture as just a result of racially diverse relations it talked about the historical mixture of food and music. What is interesting about our differences is how it affects our lives on a day to day basis. I don't really consider my background because I'm white but when I eat some Slovak cuisine at my Grandmas or I go back to Minnesota and notice the Nordic influence on the region it's interesting. It doesn't have that much to do with my race as much as the transference of culture. I liked that he talked about music because it's transference transcends race completely. You can find musical styles like reggae or the blues in all corners of the world and each has a different style and direction which it took to get there.

Folk Culture

I enjoyed some of the folklore readings. In the legend of the singing tablet Utuquel is the chewer of the moon a creative muse of sorts. The singing tablets story seemed to represent the idea of collective consciousness for me. It was striking how the wedding rings and family jewels of the natives were taken by the Spanish for a bell in the Legend of the Silent Bell. The Pongo's Dream is a fairly disturbing story about the value of human life. It centers around two characters, the dominating rich lord and the submissive poor slave. The serf is described as meek and feeble. The lord is cruel not only because he keeps slaves but his humiliation of the weakest serf who serves him. The story shadows the feudal domination which took place in the Andes. The serfs description of his dream can definitely be seen as an uprising of the the working class. I thought it was imaginative how the dream was twisted into a joke with a punch line which seems to allude to the idea that we all must pay for our actions. How popular are these legends in Latin America? Are they really an important aspect of the culture?