Saint Teresa of Avila

"Let nothing disturb you.
 Let nothing frighten you.
 All things pass.
 God does not change.
 Patience achieves everything.
 Whoever has God lacks nothing.
 God alone suffices."

Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy - Carlos Eire

In his 2003 National Book Award–winning memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire narrated his coming of age in Cuba just before and during the Castro revolution. That book literally ends in midair as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother leave Havana on an airplane—along with thousands of other children—to begin their new life in Miami in 1962. It would be years before he would see his mother again. He would never again see his beloved father.

Learning to Die in Miami opens as the plane lands and Carlos faces, with trepidation and excitement, his new life. He quickly realizes that in order for his new American self to emerge, his Cuban self must "die." And so, with great enterprise and purpose, he begins his journey.

We follow Carlos as he adjusts to life in his new home. Faced with learning English, attending American schools, and an uncertain future, young Carlos confronts the age-old immigrant’s plight: being surrounded by American bounty, but not able to partake right away. The abundance America has to offer excites him and, regardless of how grim his living situation becomes, he eagerly forges ahead with his own personal assimilation program, shedding the vestiges of his old life almost immediately, even changing his name to Charles. Cuba becomes a remote and vague idea in the back of his mind, something he used to know well, but now it "had ceased to be part of the world."

But as Carlos comes to grips with his strange surroundings, he must also struggle with everyday issues of growing up. His constant movement between foster homes and the eventual realization that his parents are far away in Cuba bring on an acute awareness that his life has irrevocably changed. Flashing back and forth between past and future, we watch as Carlos balances the divide between his past and present homes and finds his way in this strange new world, one that seems to hold the exhilarating promise of infinite possibilities and one that he will eventually claim as his own.

An exorcism and an ode, Learning to Die in Miami is a celebration of renewal—of those times when we’re certain we have died and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.
Source: Amazon.com

Brazil on the Rise by Larry Rohter

Forty seven years have passed since Charles Wagley's  Introduction to Brazil (1963) was published, which became a classic on Brazilian studies in the English-speaking world.  Larry Rohter, who served as the New York Times bureau chief in Rio de Janeiro for fourteen years, has just recaptured the spirit of Brazil, giving his readers a fresh and up-to-date account of culture and politics of a country that continues to fascinate people around the globe. He uncovers how Brazilians handle the burden of being custodians of the Amazon rainforest; Brazil’s latest exports, from the samba, supermodels, and soccer, to airplane parts; the myth of Brazil’s sexually charged culture, with three-quarters of the population devoutly Roman Catholic; how drug-controlled shanty-towns thrive amidst the world’s highest standard of living.  I truly recommend Brazil on the Rise.  It is a fascinating account of my country.   
Neda Bezerra

                 The Author: Larry Rohter

Paraty - My favorite town of Colonial Brazil.

Located on the Costa Verde (Green Coast), a lush, green corridor that runs along the coastline of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, Paraty (or Parati) [pronounced Par-a-CHEE] is a preserved Portuguese colonial and Brazilian Imperial (1822-1889) town. Paraty has become a popular tourist area in recent years, renowned for the beauty of the town and the coast and mountains in the region.

Paraty was founded formally as a town by Portuguese colonizers in 1667, in a region populated by the Guaianás Indians.

The Guaianás people who lived where the city now stands called the entire area “Paraty”. In the Tupi language “Paraty” means “river of fish”. Even today the Brazilian Mullet (Mugil Brasiliensis) still come back to spawn in the rivers that spill into the Bay of Paraty. When the region was colonized by the Portuguese, they adopted the Guaianás name for their new town.

One of my favorite quotes.

"In a world where suffering, death, and moral failure are inevitable, the only real treasures are intangible, and the greatest three things on earth are faith, hope, and love."  
Carlos Eire (From his essay on Imitation of Christ by Thomas À Kempis).

                             Thomas À Kempis

Fort Hall - Pocatello Idaho

Fort Hall was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country, part of the present-day United States, and is located in Fort Hall, Idaho. It was considered the "most significant of all pioneer institutions in the West" by noted historian Merrill D. Beal. Fort Hall was constructed as a commercial venture, situated on the Snake River north of present-day Pocatello, Idaho. It became an important stop in the 1840s and 1850s for an estimated 270,000 emigrants along the Oregon Trail and California Trail, which diverged west of the fort.

Photos by Vitit Kantabutra.

Geographic Information Systems for Humanities Research

http://library.stanford.edu/depts/gis/ppt/HumanitiesDemo.pdf

19th Century Recife

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyIorZkD9mA&feature=related

Images of 19th Century Brazilian Slavery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4F2vgkN1Ys&feature=player_embedded#!

Mapping Religion...

Prof. Lionel Rothkrug identified the locations of more than one thousand German pilgrimage shrines from before the Reformation. By combining the GIS map of shrines with layers showing the regional concentration of Catholics and Protestants in later centuries, he found that places with pre-Reformation shrines remained Catholic. I am investigating the impact of Catholic immigrants in the American religious landscape by combaning the GIS map of shrines with layers showing the influx of immigrants along the last four centuries.

Europe and the People without History by Eric Wolf

In his book Europe and the People without History, Eric Wolf addresses the expansion of Spain and Portugal into the Americas, with Spain conquering Nuclear America and Portugal occupying Atlantic coastal Brazil. In 1494 Spain and Portugal had signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the newly discovered land outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a Meridian 370 West of Cape Verde Island. This treaty made it legal for both countries to claim their territories in the Americas. Once the Spanish and Portuguese arrived in the Americas the indigenous populations were enslaved and also almost decimated either by diseases, such as smallpox and measles, brought to the New World by the Europeans or by the harsh labor conditions. The pre-Historic population of Mesoamerica, for instance, had been estimated in 25 million. By 1650 that number had fallen to 1.5 million. In Brazil it was not any different.

Spain was interested in acquiring silver from the Americas. From 1503 and 1660 more than seven million pounds of silver reached Spain from Central and South America. Spain also imported dyestuffs and cocoa. In Brazil, the Portuguese enterprises were organized from the start to raise a crop for export. First, they exported brazilwood and later sugar from the sugarcane plantations they established along the coast. Once the Dutch introduced sugarcane in the Caribbean and the demand for sugar from Brazil declined, the Portuguese geared their efforts towards finding gold in their colony. After almost 200 years of their presence in Brazil, gold was finally discovered in 1695 in the state of Minas Gerais. Its extraction would last for the next 100 years and consumed the lives of thousands of African slaves.

Wolf goes on to present the history of the fur trade in North America. The North American beaver became the most valuable furbearer of the New World and for three hundred years demand for beaver hats in Europe propelled the hunting of this most industrious rodent. The North American Indians developed a need for muskets, balls, powder, kettles, knives, hatches, needles, scissors, pipes, and other goods as well as a taste for tobacco, rum and brandy. Thus, the North American fur trade redefined Native American’s relationships with the wildlife, the forest, and their spiritual world. It made them more and more dependent on Europeans and their goods and also less able to resist invasion of their lands. In addition, dissemination of firearms brought much deadliness to the Indian population. The advancing European settlement frontier set the final blow to most Indian groups in North America, and the demands established by the fur trade depleted the beaver population to near extinction.

Eric Wolf also explores the slave trade, which grew gradually during the sixteenth century in response to Spanish and Portuguese demand. Both Portuguese and English had come to Africa in search of commodities, such as gold, pepper, ivory, dyewoods, gum, beeswax, leather, and timber. Later, both the Portuguese and the English engaged in slave trade. It would take three hundred years by the time England decided to abolish the slave trade (1807). However, even after that, millions of slaves were still transported across the Atlantic, especially to Brazil, which did not abolish slavery until 1888. Wolf explains that Europeans had tried to enslave the indigenous peoples of the Americas, but they found it to be difficult task because the indigenous would run away since they were so close to their native groups. It is important to point out that Europeans did not hunt African slaves. There were three mechanisms in Africa that turned a free man into a potential slave: pawnship, judicial separation of a person from the protection of lineage, and warfare. Wolf presents with details all the areas in Africa that provided slaves to Europeans.

Finally, Wolf presents the trade and conquest in the Orient. Both the Portuguese and the Dutch had their eyes set in Asia. They sought spices there, especially pepper. In the late 18th century the English moved into Asia and took over the Mughal Empire. Wolf explains that what enabled the European to expand into Asia was the gun-bearing sailing ship. The English settled in India in 1690, altering much of India’s way of life, which had profound consequences for the society. For instance, the spread of machine-goods introduced by the English disrupted village crafts, affecting the livelihood of the local artisans. Later, the English established commerce with China and purchased silks, porcelains, and medicines. Instead of accepting the English commodities, the Chinese Emperor demanded payment in silver. In 1664 the English were introduced to tea by the Dutch and the serrated leaves of the tea shrub became a desired commodity in England. Millions of pounds of tea were brought into England from China and had to be paid in silver. Portuguese and Spanish brought tobacco, sweet potatoes, and peanuts into China, changing the food habits of the Chinese. The English also brought into China opium from India and sandalwood from Australia and various Pacific islands. While England expanded its commodity trade in China, it also expanded its dominance in India. With the installation of the capitalist mode of production, England drew India into its expanding orbit. Wolf argues that both India and China were crucial to the evolution of the international economy. It is important to notice that while presenting the expansion of Europe into the Americas and Asia in the early modern age, Wolf is able to show how non-Europeans were active participants in their history.
Neda Bezerra

This week's Gospel: Reconciliation

The Return of the Prodigal Son
Author : BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO
Date :1667-70
Location :National Gallery of Art, Washington

Historical Thematic Map - Cholera Epidemic in the State of Ceará, Brazil, in 1862.

Barão de Studart

Estação Ferroviária de Maranguape - Século XIX

In 1904, Dr. Guilherme de Studart, also known as Baron of Studart, a medical doctor and scholar in the State of Ceará, Brazil, presented to the 4th Latin American Medical Conference, held in Rio de Janeiro, a report on the climatology, epidemics, and endemics in the 19th century in his State. Later, in 1909, Dr. Studart’s report was published in the city of Fortaleza (Capital of the State of Ceará) as a book entitled Climatologia, Epidemias e Endemias do Ceará (Climatology, Epidemics and Endemics of Ceará).

We can use the table that Dr. Studart presented in his book, on page 57, with the number of people, a total of 11,000, who died during the cholera epidemic of 1862 in each township in the State of Ceará, to construct a historical thematic map. The geographic units to construct a thematic map, using Dr. Studart’s table, would be the townships and the base map would be the State of Ceará. We can construct a graduated symbol map to show the number of deaths for each township. Graduated symbol maps use symbols of varying sizes placed within a region (in this case the townships of Ceará) to denote the value ascribed to it. We would use a circle to symbolize the number of deaths, not a skull, even though a symbol that relates to the theme of the map is often complementary and adds to its effectiveness. If Dr. Studart had provided the number of inhabitants for each township in the year 1862, we would be able to make a choropleth map showing the mortality rate by a specific number of inhabitants.

Even though the data cannot answer any question concerning the location most affected by the disease because we do not have available the number of inhabitants per township, a graduated symbol map of the number of deaths can tell more than just a simple table like the one Dr. Studart presented in his book in 1909. A map, like any other picture, can, in many cases, be more effective than a table of data. Even though this map would not answer many historical questions, a thematic map of the number of people who died of cholera in each township of Ceará during the 1862 epidemic can actually raise questions for further research. One can ask, for instance, why so many people died in the township of Maranguape, and then try to find out if the mortality rate there was really higher than in the other townships. If, indeed, the mortality rate in Maranguape was much higher than in the other townships, one can then ask why. Also, it is known in the folk culture of Maranguape that Saint Sebastian intervened in ending Cholera there in 1862. Once we know the mortality rate there, we will be better able to understand, for instance, why the people of Maranguape had to resort to San Sebastian’s intervention to end the epidemic.

Neda Bezerra

Europe and the People without History by Eric Wolf

The central assertion that Eric Wolf makes in this book is that the expansion of European societies during the Modern Era affected not only the societies that Europeans encountered, but also their own. During the past two hundred years scholars have tended to divide the world into different societies and look at non-European peoples as non-participants in the development of history, as if they were from unchanging cultures. This is the reason why they were left out of the Eurocentric construction of history and, thus, referred by Wolf as “people without history.”

Wolf starts the first chapter by examining sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics as disciplines that have tried to explain how individuals and groups function. He outlines the capitalist and mercantile development processes and follows their effects on the populations studied by ethnohistorians and anthropologists. Wolf also looks at history as an analytical account of the development of material relations progressing together on the macro and micro levels. He first presents the world in 1400 before European world-wide dominance and then he goes on to look at some theoretical constructs to allow us to understand the determining factors for the emergence of capitalism. He proceeds to show how European nations expanded globally and the impact of capitalism on the world “periphery” that supplied resources to the industrial centers. Wolf’s aim is to show that “both the people who claim history as their own and the people whom history has been denied emerge as participants in the same historical trajectory” (p.23).

Wolf presents the world in 1400 in detail. He includes the political geography of the Old World, explaining the trade routes and the peoples who used them and lived along them. Then he goes on to present the Near East and Africa. He explains that each region was dominated by elite of intermarrying families, comprising landowners, merchants, state officials, heads of guilds, and the religious leaders of mosques, schools, and charitable foundations. The maintenance of power in these territories depended on keeping control of the region through its elite and on the alliances with pastoral groups who could defend them. It is interesting to see that today in certain parts of the world, such as in Latin American, the maintenance of power is still done in a very similar fashion, through its elites and in alliance with the disenfranchised who, very often, exchange their votes for material resources. He also presents the history of South and East Asia, and the New World. At the end of the chapter, Wolf once again asserts that “Everywhere in this world of 1400, populations existed in interconnections” (p.71). Thus, Wolf, concludes that “the social scientist’s model of distinct and separate systems, and of timeless ‘precontact’ ethnographic present, does not adequately depict the situation before European expansion” (p.71).

Wolf also examines the modes of production: the capitalist, the tributary, and the kin-ordered. He concludes that both the tributary and the capitalist modes require mechanisms of domination to ensure that surpluses are transferable from one class to the other. For Wolf, these modes of production are established as constructs with which to conceive certain strategic relationships that bring together the terms under which human lives are conducted. They are instruments for understanding the central connections build up among the expanding Europeans and the other peoples of the globe. In chapter four, Wolf introduces Europe in its prelude to Expansion.

In summary, Wolf presents the world as a changing interconnection of parts rather than as a stable unity. He shows through insurmountable amount of information and details that societies, cultures, and peoples were constantly changing in a world that was in a process of expansion. In an interview with American anthropologist Jonathan Friedman in 1987, Wolf said: "My primary interest is to explain something out there that impinges me, and I would sell my soul to the devil if I thought it would help." He, indeed, puts great effort in trying to explain that the world has always been interconnected and that relationships between peoples occurred under exploitation and domination.

Neda Bezerra

Wake up, Oliver Stone!

I watched an interview on Democracy Now with filmmaker Oliver Stone promoting his new documentary “South of the Border” and was appalled by his naïveté to think that people such as a Chávez, Lula, Morales and the Kirchners are representatives of democracy in Latin America. Let’s not forget that Mussolini made trains run on time and Hitler had socialized medicine. Wake up, Oliver Stone!
Neda Bezerra

A Spatial-Temporal Analysis of the Impact of Public Health Campaigns to Eradicate Yellow Fever in Brazil from 1849-1949 - Neda Bezerra

The first outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil occurred in 1685 in the city of Recife, but the first public health campaign to combat it would not start until six years later, in 1691. In 1849 another major outbreak of yellow fever occurred in Brazil. This time it killed 2.800 people in the city of Salvador and 4.160 in Rio de Janeiro, then the seat of the Brazilian Empire. In 1881 Cuban medical doctor Carlos Finlay proves that the mosquito Aedes aegypti is the vector that carries the yellow fever virus. Between 1850 and 1899 yellow fever spread all over Brazil; however, it is not until 1901, based on Dr. Finlay’s findings, that a fight against the Aedes aegypti is started in Brazil. The efforts to eradicate yellow fever would take Brazil in a battle that would last for fifty years.

The purpose of this study is to use Geographic Information System to analyze the impact of public health campaigns to eradicate yellow fever in Brazil during a one hundred-year period, from 1849 to 1949. The following question will guide this research:
- What is the relationship between public health policies and the eradication of yellow fever in Brazil between 1849 and 1949?
In other words:
- What is the spatial distribution of yellow fever in Brazil in association with public health policies?

I intend to collect the data on the outbreaks of yellow fever as well as on the public health campaigns to combat them from primary and secondary sources (historical works published in the past) and from Brazilian federal government agencies.

Neda Bezerra

Books I picked up to read this week....

Los Angeles Times The most accomplished literary expression of exile sensibility to have appeared to date. What is powerful and lasting about the book is Eire's evocation of childhood and his extraordinary literary ability. 

The Boston Globe Eire is gifted with what might be called lyric precision

-- a knack for grasping the life of a moment through its sensuous particulars....Vigorously written and alive.

The Washington PostBursting with wonderful details and images and populated by characters so well described that they seem to be sitting next to you on the couch. 

The Miami Herald A wistful glimpse of a shattered world.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?cid=1177612 

http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_01/eire.html

I am also reading Meister Eckhart  (c. 1260 – c. 1327).

Faith

"Faith is believing what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see what we believe." St. Augustine.

I can't wait to get there...

Top 10 College Towns: Great Cities for School & Life After Graduation

http://www.livability.com/top-10-college-towns

Ethnohistory

Ethnohistory is a field of study that emerged after WWII, which focused at first on native and non-Western peoples, from anthropological and historical viewpoints. Despite the fact that ethnohistory did not become an academic discipline until the mid-twentieth century, for centuries scholars, such as the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., or the North African scholar Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 14th century, were ethnohistorians. Russel J. Barber and Frances F. Berdan, in their book The Emperor’s Mirror: Understanding Culture through Primary Sources (1998), define this discipline “as an interdisciplinary field that studies past human behavior and is characterized by a primary reliance on documents, the use of input from other sources when available, a methodology that incorporates historiography and cultural relativism and a focus on cultural interaction.”

In summary, ethnohistory is what ethnohistorians do. But who are ethnohistorians? Barber and Berdan argue that most ethnohistorians have been trained either in anthropology or history. However, more and more ethnohistorians are coming from interdisciplinary programs. One factor that encouraged the growth of ethnohistory in the second half of the 20th century was the waning of Functionalism. Functionalists such as Bronislaw Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe Brown focused on synchronic studies and for a number of years carried out an antihistorical tradition.

Shepard Krech III in his article “The State of Ethnohistory” argues that in recent years history and anthropology have interpenetrated each other. People such as American anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Renato Rosaldo have used historical records to demonstrate anthropological perspectives. At the end of his essay Krech III asks if we indeed need this new discipline called ethnohistory. For him, ethnohistory is just one type of hyphenated history. He defines ethnohistory as “anthropology with a time dimension or history informed by anthropological concepts.” For Krech III “both anthropological history and historical anthropology substitute well for ethnohistory without stigma or illogic, and one’s training in anthropology should not prevent one from writing anthropological history (or plain history for that matter), just as a training in history should not preclude production of a historical anthropology.”

Independent of the name researchers adopt, be it ethnohistory or historical anthropology, they should always be aware that research, above all, should enhance knowledge. Thus, a well-formed plan is necessary. Barber and Burden point out the importance of reading the literature prior to conducting the research because it will guide the researcher through the process of designing the research. They explain that a research design (proposal) is like a map. It serves to guide the researcher.

In summary, Barber and Berdan present a well structured introduction of enthnohistory as an academic discipline. While Barber and Berdan guide us through the development of enthnohistory and the processes of formulating research topics and designs and give us insights into archives, Krech III, tries to show that the boundaries that separate anthropology from history, and enthnohistory from history, were more clearly in the past than they are today. For him, a well-trained scholar can venture from anthropology into history and vice-versa. I, personally, think that an anthropologist should not disregard the history of a community or peoples that he or she is studying. Even though anthropologist will always carry with pride the research strategy of participant observation, originated in field work of social anthropologists, especially Bronislaw Malinowski, incorporating history will most likely give a more accurate view of the peoples or cultural aspects studied. The same goes for historians. If the take a moment to understand the tools anthropologists use while doing research, they will most likely benefit from using them in their research. I believe that ethnohistory as a discipline emerged to bring scholars from different backgrounds, especially anthropologists and historian, together and share the tools of their trade. It is by adopting each other’s tools that we are better able to describe and analyze our object of study.
Neda Bezerra.

Book Review

In his book Geography and History: Bridging the Divide, historical geographer Alan R. H. Baker examines the interdependence of geography and history. He points out that geography is not only about maps and history about chaps. To regard geography and history as being concerned only with places and people respectively is a distorted representation of these disciplines. Geography and history are, instead, very broad disciplines that have different ways of looking at the world, but they are so closely related that they cannot ignore or neglect each other. There is in fact a significant overlapping of interests between the two disciplines.

The debate about the role of geography and history intersecting is a long one. Almost a century ago the German geographer Alfred Hettner pointed out that the distribution by place forms a characteristic of objects and must necessarily be included in the compass of research. Baker, then, highlights that the “objects” studied by historians have their own geographical (spatial) distribution. He explains that distribution has been the foundation of one of the major discourses within geography and especially within historical geography. While mapping distribution of phenomena in the present is a major concern of geography, historical geography is especially concerned with mapping the past.

Mapping the past, however, is not a simple task. Baker explains that it is in fact a difficult and demanding undertaking that requires selection and subjectivity on the part of the researcher. However, if one can master such a skill, it can provide excellent insight into some aspects of the past. Mapping historical sources can be seen as the reconstruction of geographies of the past as horizontal cross-sections. These individual cross-sections can provide a snapshot of the geography of a particular place at a specific moment in time. They can indicate the changes that have taken place during the intervening years. Mapping historical data is much more descriptive and provocative than interpretative and productive -- while answering the question “where?” it may also raise the question “why there?” Thus, a distribution map becomes a research tool because it poses new questions and further research.

Baker notes that the classic case of a cross-section of the past is that of the geography of England, entitled The Doomsday Geography of South-East England (1962) and The Doomsday Geography of South-West England (1967), reconstructed from Doomsday Book. In these two books the authors (H. C. Darby et al.) reconstructed a picture of the geography of England in the late eleventh century. They have come to be seen as model historical geographies of distribution.

With the advancement of technology in the late 20th century, studies of past geographical distribution have been enhanced. Historical GIS, for instance, is attracting the attention not only of geographers, but also of historians because it makes possible the spatial integration of large sets of both quantitative and qualitative data and allows comparisons over long periods of time. Some of the most sophisticated studies of spatial diffusion have been conducted in the field of historical medical geography, especially because of the continuous or near-continuous historical records of the outbreak and spread of specific diseases.

Space and time have become the concerns of geographers and historians alike and concepts of spatial and temporal organization are seen today as interdisciplinary rather than mainly geographical and historical. Baker argues that viewing time and space as resources emphasizes their relative characteristics. In summary, Baker tries to consider the benefits of the embrace between geography and history. He draws attention to the richness and diversity of work produced by those who have attempted to bridge the two disciplines.

By Neda Bezerra.