In the mid 19th century tension between the Spaniards and Puerto Ricans resulted in a massive uprising when Spain failed to conciliate the growing displeasure of its citizens. Spain involved itself in various issues all throughout Latin America. War in Peru and Chile, slave riots in Cuba, and loss of control in the Dominican Republic left the government of Spain in desperate need of financial support. As a result of their financial troubles the Spanish government imposed taxes on many of the imported and exported goods in Puerto Rico and Cuba. Of coarse, the taxes imposed only infuriated the Cubans and Puerto Ricans, turning their anger into violence.
When describing the economic changes, words like drastic and unprecedented are used. This shows that the article has a negative outlook on Castro's decision and is therefore trying to make the idea sound negative to readers. It could also mean that everyone was just surprised and it happened very suddenly. Also when stating how many workers would be laid off, instead of a set number they used the words one-fifth to emphasize how many people were going to be fired. The facts that the article contains are all negative statistics about Cuba.
For Afro-Cubans it’s not that easy, if they attempt to achieve Civil Rights through a Civil Rights movement there will be complete chaos. The government, as far as they are concerned, thinks that the issue of racism is over just because of the speech Castro gave in the mid-late 1960s. So if a movement is attempted the government will feel threatened and will attack. When African-Americans sought to gain Civil Rights the southern government fought and did all it could to try and prevent it, the same thing would happen in Cuba except instead of it being just half of the country’s government it will be the whole country’s government trying to shut them
The reoccurring themes of violence, greed and corruption are key factors that have historically hindered the pursuit of democratization for many Latin American states. These characteristics are also tools, which many Latin American government leaders have utilized to manage and maintain political power in their respective countries. In particular, “Nicaragua’s socio-political profile resembles other Latin American countries with a long history of political conflict and polarization, weak state capacity, extreme poverty” and inequality (Bay-Meyer, 398). In Tina Rosenberg’s novel, “Children of Cain”, she emphasizes the prominence of fear as a tactic employed by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua to control the country throughout the 1980s. Since then, Nicaragua has managed to see a tremendous level of progression after its first coup d’état staged by General Sandino to seize control of the country from under the rule of the United States.
Douglass’ narrative is a recount of the tough life on the plantations before his escape to New York. Douglas describes in this narrative the senseless acts of cruelty on the part of the masters as well as the debased lives of the slaves. In this book he also stated how his master forbade Mrs. Auld to teach him any further, because he felt that once Frederick Douglass learned to read, it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm, it would make him discontented and unhappy, it would forever unfit him to be a slave, and there would be no keeping him. This very much, somehow inspired Frederick Douglass to learn at whatever cost of trouble. Frederick Douglass would bring bread from his home and give an exchange for knowledge with the poor white boys, who was contribute to him being
Reinaldo Arenas lived in an era of great heartache which was known to many as the Cuban Revolution, which he helped bring to power in 1959. Arenas was given a scholarship by the Castro regime, that allowed the government of Cuba to steer the young men to become communists. Arena writes, "But we were so full of enthusiasm that we could not believe, or did not want to believe anything seriously bad might happen. It is almost impossible for human beings to imagine so many calamities befalling them at the same time; we had suffered continuous dictatorships, incessant abuse, and unrelenting mistreatment by those in power" (56). Even though Arenas was faced with serious challenges, he found a way to continually write what came to his mind so
They had no decent terrain to grow crops and the Native Americans were hostile to some colonists. It seemed that things were just not going to go right for them. Then, when the Native Americans accepted the colonists and gave them their own land, the colonists formed the thirteen American Colonies. But, the colonies were still oppressed under the king’s rule. This made almost every American upset, almost to the point of revolt, but
The South Vietnamese Allies had poor morale, they were badly paid, and they exploited US aid for financial gain. The US military had poor leadership from officers, they were frustrated because they had a lack of knowledge of the area and they had an inability to identify their enemy. These are the main reasons that the US failed to defeat the North Vietnamese Communists. The US became gradually involved in the war in Vietnam. Truman supported the French in the battle against Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh.
In the early 1950’s, Cuba was on the brink of revolution. Severe social and economic problems led to much dissatisfaction in society and a desire for change. Due to this heated atmosphere, a figure like Fidel Castro was able to gain support, fuel and accelerate revolution. He became a prominent figure after Fulgencio Batista’s coup of 1952 and is now deemed to be a major cause of the Cuban revolution. However, it is evident that Fidel would not have been as successful in conducting the revolution if it wasn’t for the underlying long term social and economic problems which essentially paved the way for revolution.
Such as freedom of speech, voting rights, cutting off the power of the communist party, as well as releasing dissidents like Sakharov. As during that period of time, Soviet Union and his satellites were facing many internal problems, which led to a time of great economic hardship, living standard of people declined, for example, the inefficient agriculture led to shortage of food and the serious inflation, these caused the people suffered a lot and created a discontent feeling with the leader. Since the USSR was used to be a communist state, the opposing opinions were all suppressed by the military force. Thus the reform program provided a chance for the people to express their opinions freely. As a result, people who felt very dissatisfied with the government and wanted to get rid of communist control started a series