Education is a very important tool to attain because it improves many different aspects of your life. With a source of education, people would gather different ideas, which would lead to them creating new things and obtaining jobs which would ultimately help the economy.

There are certain countries who do not have access to this human right. A lot of those countries come from Latin America. Unfortunately the leader of these countries aren’t fixing anything. Brazil and Mexico have the worst economic systems in Latin America and it just so happens that their leaders aren’t doing much to change that. The Brazilian leader wants to shrink the curriculum to just Portuguese and math, getting rid of science, humanities, and social studies. This is also a problem in Mexico, where Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is changing their education system drastically. The schools are not given enough supply/money to achieve their goals which leads to kids not finishing school and dropping out. Nearly 14 million children are out of the education system.

Children with disabilities have a harder time finding the right education because of the lack of help and supplies they receive. I think that this is a huge problem in Latin America because the children who have disabilities have the right to an education as well, even though they are not granted any. One huge problem in Latin America is not having the access to the right education due to financial reasons and governing reasons.

I read that the lack of education leads to greater things such as the great percent of unemployment. People are unable to find jobs because of their low level education. Latin America needs young smart individuals to brighten up their economy and change how life is lived. Personally, I believe that education is a huge fundamental human right as it can lead to the downfall of an economy/country. This is why education needs to be a top priority in Latin America.

The movie, “No” really touched base on how a dictatorship works and how it can affect the country, but I did not notice them talk much about how they got into that place and what a democracy is. Reading this article opened my eyes to see what a democracy is and how these dictators started off. Many dictators started off by making promises and using false statements to gain the votes of people all over. Both movies taught me how corrupt a dictatorship can be. Again, in the movie “No”, the yes campaign was sure they would win and the referendum didn’t matter. They were planning on rigging the votes like they have been doing for years. They managed to track down the opposing advertising tape, so they could watch it and counter their arguments before they aired.

Dictatorships back then are very similar to how they are now besides the fact that they are becoming more democratic. Looking at Venezuela, president Maduro has the strongest say in their country which has led to poverty, violence, etc. Many people believe that he was brought into power through corruption, which is very reasonable due to the fact that not many people would vote for him.

These movies really showed me how hard it is to live in a dictatorship because of how difficult it can be to survive, but also how difficult it can be to overthrow the dictator. It would involve an army of citizens to stand up and fight against the corrupted state. After discussing the movies in class, it makes me realize how lucky and blessed I am to live in this country. Even though many people despise our president, I feel like it is harder in other countries to fight against your president while scavenging for food and fighting against corruption.

Looking at the original 30 human rights, one caught my eye, and that was number five, “No one may torture you.” This human right definitely connects back to the dirty war in Argentina because of the suffering many individuals had to go through every day. The government took people who spoke against the government to a secret detention center and tortured them for countless hours.

Torture is a pretty heated topic in 2019, with people debating whether it’s necessary. Personally, I think it is necessary in some cases. Of course I do not support humans being physically harmed, but I do feel like if it meant that a whole community would be safe, then yes I agree with it. There are also different levels of torture, such as, phycological torture and physical torture. Both could work, but If someone went with the physical route, I don’t think it has to harm the person in a way that it will impact their physical life in the future too much.

In the dirty war, the government did not follow this human right whatsoever, as they tortured humans for no reason. Often, they would abuse that person so much that they would later die because of it. Even though I think torture can be necessary, I believe that it is the absolute last result.

Today, in groups, we presented a certain problem that is happening in Latin America. There are many problems everyday in Latin America but a few big ones are deforestation, illegal mining, air and water pollution, and oil. Deforestation is a major issue particularly in two countries, Brazil and Peru. Brazil is suffering from this because of the land mass and the percentage of the amazon that runs through it. The largest part of the amazon is in Brazil which causes the biodiversity to decrease more than 57%. This is a huge problem because it leads to animals and trees being destroyed/killed.

Illegal mining is another huge issue happening in Latin America. 90% of gold found in Venezuela is from illegal mining. This is a problem because it is possible for the workers to be in extreme danger with the gases. The workers can sometimes work 24 hour shifts, especially younger children. It can also be a problem to the community relating to health issues. The next two, oil production and air/water pollution go hand and hand in a sense. Oil production is very dangerous which could affect the water and air. If people drink the polluted water, it could lead to birth defects and many other problems. Guadalajara, Mexico is ranked #1 in air/water pollution because of the population. The cities with the worst pollution are often times the most populates because cars can have a huge affect on the air quality. The oil production in Latin America affects other countries outside Latin America as well. The United States relies on Venezuela for oil, but sense Venezuela is dealing with an economic crisis, it becomes more difficult for us.

Today, we watched a documentary about individual people attempting to cross the border into the United States. While watching, I realized many things, but what stuck out to me the most were the risks and decisions in order to cross the border. Many people risked their lives everyday just to arrive at the United States to restart their life. In the documentary, children would travel to the United States to help their family with money, food, etc. I cannot imagine thinking that way at such a young age. My parents would pay for me and feed me. The thought of a job never crossed my mind when I was that young.

Discussing immigration makes us aware, but watching people’s personal experience makes us further understand their situation. In the documentary, they were asked why they wanted to travel to the United States and many of them said either to start a new life, or provide for their families.

Today, we were told to make a plan to get from Honduras to America. Before we started, I initially thought of a question; “how hard is it to cross the boarder?” Before starting the activity, I thought it was easy just to go around the boarder because of the pictures I have previously seen. We also had to create some sort of bag to pack for the trip. Too much water would be too heavy, too little water would get you killed. Doing this activity opened my eyes to see the struggle many people go through every day.

The packing of the bag was the easiest part. Thinking of how to get from Honduras to the United States with only $40 was the difficult part. Do we hitchhike, but risk getting killed? Do we walk, but risk dying of dehydration? There weren’t many solutions to this problem. I can’t even begin to imagine of how immigrants feel when crossing the boarder. Today made me feel lucky to be in this country, to have a loving family who cares about me, and to have a great education. Researching and watching videos made me realize how many people in this world are living in extreme poverty and just want out of their country.

I am sitting in this chair at an amazing school, writing a blog on my laptop, while some people are scavenging for food, water, and transportation just so they can make it into this country.

Today, we discussed the common assumptions about immigration. I was very surprised how much we assume something about someone without even knowing anything about them. During our activity, I was asking myself some questions. The main one was why do we do this? This question made me think very hard. I think that we make assumptions about people because of the stereotypes we have put in place over the years.

This activity really opened up my eyes in a way. I never knew how judgmental people can be without even knowing. I don’t think that is necessarily our fault as humans. I just feel like it’s human nature. I learned how completely wrong our assumptions can be from our activity. We assume where their from, how wealthy they are, what their occupation is, etc. It amazes me to see how, us humans act to these situations.

Overall, today made me realize many things not just about us as humans, but I realized things about myself as well.

Today, we touched base on the issues that affect Latin America today. After being a part of some in depth conversations, I jolted with curiosity. As a group, we came up with 5 common issues that seemed to pop up within these Latin American countries. Human Rights Violations, Economy, Environment, Immigration, and Government. There is one thing that I can’t get out of my head, and that’s immigration. I find it difficult to decide whether to keep it as its own topic or make it a sub topic.

Human rights violation would be a part of immigration because it is a human right to seek asylum. This would soon become a problem because if I want to say that seeking asylum is a sub topic of immigration, it would also be under Human rights violation. This would also become a problem if I wanted to make border control under immigration. This would also guide us into another roadblock because the border is controlled by the government. Therefore, it would be under the government topic.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton