During our introduction session tonight, we have defined vocabularies such as economic, capitalism, charity and etc. As someone who does not usually participate at workshops or lectures, I happened to contribute my ideas actively throughout the session. Further, the connection of “the cause and the consequence” between colonialism, patriarchy, racism, and capitalism made me to rethink the images Guatemala presents to the public.
As soon as I stepped out from the Guatemala airport, I was aware that there were multiple billboards from Samsung and other billboards with slogans that attempt to say that tourists will be satisfied when they visit Guatemala. Those advertisements, however, do not describe the real challenges which the Guatemalans are facing. Moreover, on our way to the hotel, I saw many Japanese brand cars. Covered under the history of Spanish colonialism, Guatemala is now conquered by other emerging countries such as Korea and Japan, as mentioned above. The promotion of foreign country products might stagnate Guatemala’s Total Factor Productivity due to the lack of technology advancement and their dependence on foreign goods. Hence, emerging countries’ exploitation of Guatemalans’ demand and consuming behavior is parallel to the encomienda during the colonial period.
The billboards on tourism do not clearly demonstrate racism, yet, the pictures allude privilege, which is relevant to racism. The Guatemalan government degrades the image/status of its civilians to the world because the government promotes tourists to come to Guatemala to study Spanish, to go on excursions, or to relax. Those Guatemalans slowly become servants of all tourists and people might be less respectful to them because of their lower social class.
Lastly, I realized that drivers are predominated by males. I am uncertain if patriarchy is applicable in this situation, nonetheless, I am interested to understand more about this trend.
Kiyan
Solgua14 
nice article kiyan!