2001 Annual Grant Issue
Reed Skoug and Deborah Mersky: Kast Grant Report
Hispanic Cinema: Focus on Human Rights

The idea for this course actually originated six years ago when we developed our first cinema course. At that time our plan had been to watch as many films as we could possibly acquire by notable Spanish or Hispanic directors and to build our course around those films. We began our assignment by renting films by Almodóvar, Buñuel, Saura and others. As we watched two major themes emerged. One was the relationship between men and women in the Spanish-speaking world, and the other was human rights. Relationships between men and women became the basis of our first course. We selected a nucleus of films, such as Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown (Almodóvar), Belle Epoque (Trueba), Like Water for Chocolate (Arau), El Amor Brujo (Saura), and Él (Buñuel), and wove literary pieces, songs, news articles, essays, current events documentaries, Spanish history texts, and materials from the Spanish Department of Education into the fabric of a humanities based course. We were pleased with the course and the range of materials and ideas that it had to offer. It was obvious to us that at some future point we would have to revisit the theme of human rights, a theme that both stamped and stained the conscience of the twentieth century. Conditions were favorable for us to embark upon this endeavor in the summer of 2001.

While remaining receptive to other ideas, we knew that we wanted to investigate certain pre-established topics: the conquistadors and their abuses, the treatment of indigenous peoples from the times of European settlement to the present, the plight of the poor, the rise of military dictatorships, the clergy, communism in Cuba, the treatment of intellectuals such as Federico Garcia Lorca, and the mystery of thousands of missing persons. We felt fortunate in that we were able to find a significant number of films that corresponded to these topics. Among the additional themes that directors chose to convey were the personification of good and evil, racism, democracy, and the perpetuation of the status quo. We were especially gratified because many of the films that we selected for the course were award winners. In addition there was an abundance of literary selections to accompany the films.

The following films and authors have been incorporated as the framework for the course:

Film	Year	Director	Country	Awards	Author*
Cabeza de Vaca	1990	Nicolás Echevarria	Mexico/ Spain	8 International film awards	Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca : Bartolomé de las Casas
Knocks at My Door / Golpes a Mi Puerta	1993	Alejandro Saderman	Venezuela		Pablo Neruda
Romero	1989	John Duigan	USA		Carolyn Forche
The Lion's Den / La Boca del Lobo	1988	Francisco J.Lombardi	Peru	SanSebastian Film Festival Prize	Cesar Vallejo; Mario Vargas Llosa
Red Dawn/ Rojo Amanecer	1989	Jorge Fons	Mexico		Rosario Castellanos; Octavio Paz; Elena Poniatowska
The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca	1996	Marcos Zurinaga	USA		Federico García Lorca, Gabriel
Los Olvidados/ The Young and the Damned	1950	Luis Buñuel	Mexico	#2 of 100 Best Mexican films	Juan Rulfo: Rosario Ferré: César Vallejo
Men With Guns	1998	John Sayles	USA
The Silence of Neto	1994	Luis Argueta	Guatemala	Sundance Film Festival New York Latino Film Festival; New England Festival of Latin America; Huelva Film Festival ; Biarritz Film Festival ; International Film Festival, Puerto Rico	Rigoberta Menchú
Bitter Sugar/ Azúcar Amarga	1996	Leon Ichaso	Cuba y República Dominicana		Armando Valladare
La Historia Oficial The Official Story		Luis Puenzo			Juan Gelman

*Author of Main Literary Selection

As we watched each film, the pervasiveness of violence and the sheer number of human rights abuses in country after country thoroughly shocked and deeply saddened us. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano noted, "We have the good fortune and the misfortune to belong to a tormented region of the world, Latin America, and to live in a historic period that is relentlessly oppressive." As horrifying and depressing as events and circumstances have been and continue to be, the victimized have born their burdens with an incredible nobility of spirit. The quintessential representative of this spirit is Rigoberta Menchú Tum, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize and indefatigable advocate of human rights. A member of the Quiché people, one of Guatemala's more than twenty indigenous cultures, Menchú made the decision to learn Spanish, so that she could communicate the grievous human rights' violations of the indigenous population to the outside world. Her book, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia, will serve as one of the core texts for the course.

One of the most difficult, and at the same time, one of the most important tasks before us was to create some kind of positive outcome for our students in exchange for their introduction to the widespread atrocity and disregard for human life in post-World War II Latin America. A few projects for the course have been envisioned. Given that knowledge is power, we considered having the students create a human rights quilt for display in the first floor hallway. Each patch of the quilt would represent either an advocate or a victim of human rights. The purpose of the quilt would be to pique curiosity and to raise consciousness and discussion by the student body in general. Another project would involve researching the recent human rights' record of an assigned Latin American country. Each student would present an oral report to the class on his or her findings. Perhaps the most significant project is one in which the students would reach beyond their insular world in order to support a particular human rights organization in Latin America. The class could sponsor a dinner featuring Hispanic foods in order to raise funds for this enterprise. The projects are in the refinement stage at this time.

Our research in developing this course allowed us to explore the frightening reality of repressive political systems which exist all over the world. This was an eye opening and fascinating, if tragic, journey to a landscape which is very different from our own. The fact that this is not revealed in more than an incidental way is an indictment of our media and of our focus in the United States of America. The extent to which each individual is interested in informing himself and making a difference is quite personal. However, once armed with the knowledge that poverty, repression and torture exist, it is incumbent upon us, as members of a democratic regime which values freedom of opinion and expression, to attempt to change the lives of those miserable souls and unfortunate victims born to suffer under dictators.

We look forward to teaching this course with the expectation that our students will find it an informative, inspiring and rewarding experience.