Thoughts on Studying Uruguayan History

Marilyn, May 10, 2015

Friday, I had big plans for an educationally-loaded trip into Montevideo with the boys. Among the things on our agenda was a visit to an art museum to see the most famous work of one of Uruguay's most famous artists, Juan Manuel Blanes. We had read about the painting and the event it commemorates in our history book. It seemed like something we should lay our eyes on, and this was as good a day as any to get that experience checked off our list.

I could detail our many hurdles in actually getting out the door of the house, and I could describe the tedious bus ride into Montevideo. I could explain how several frustrations piled on top of one another once we got to the city, and I could expound on the interminable bus ride to the museum. But I will limit myself to admitting that 40 minutes into the second bus ride, I reached the point of incredulity that I was dragging my kids through all of this just to see a painting. What painting could possibly be worth all this effort? My boys remained remarkably patient up until almost the end, but even before they started kicking each other across the bus seats, I was sinking into despair over one more failed educational outing. I began to consider cutting my losses, wondering how I could justify the cost of a taxi home.

Luckily, it was right about then that we arrived at our stop, or at least close enough that I could push my kids off the bus before they caused any real damage to each other or anyone else. We walked a few blocks along a crowded street that looked like an unlikely location for a museum. And then, kind of all of a sudden, there it was, a stately old building in the middle of a lovely park-like setting, very warm and welcoming. I could feel the anxiety start to lift. We walked in, were greeted by friendly guards, and soon were in the gallery housing the painting we had come to see.

And it was simply glorious.

Breathtaking. Magnificent. Profound.

Almost alone in the gallery, kneeling between my boys, taking in this masterpiece of art and treasure of history, I knew that this is exactly why we home school. We have the freedom to invest ridiculous amounts of time and energy into experiences that drive deep into our emotions and infuse our learning with meaning, that cut across all sorts of subjects and curricula, and help us touch and feel and taste and understand what's real in the world and in ourselves.

Of course, this image doesn't do the painting justice, but you get the idea.

Our whole study of Uruguayan history has at times seemed like a ridiculous investment of time and energy for questionable payoff. Early on, I recognized a few obvious benefits, including the language practice it was giving me as I painstakingly translated each word of our history book. Too, the boys really enjoyed the artwork component as they drew pictures of what they imagined each upcoming chapter to be about. But, really, I asked myself more than once, how valuable is it for Americans, and Guatemalan Americans at that, to have such an in-depth knowledge of Uruguayan history? And since much of the history we were reading was battle after battle, war after war, conflict after conflict, there was little content that we found very uplifiting. We were invested, though, and I was determined to plod on through.

Teo with a few of the many drawings of Uruguayan history that adorn our walls

And then the aha! moment occurred. We had just read about Uruguay achieving its independence. We learned that soon afterward, the leaders of that independence movement, who had been friends and allies, became bitter enemies, each vying for power, and throwing the young country into civil war. As we read this history, our conversation immediately turned, and we weren't just talking about a small South American country 5000 miles away from anything that seemed pertinent to our lives at home. We were talking about something much broader, about what has happened and what continues to happen in country after country after country when fighters become leaders and only know how to lead through continued fighting. We got to talk about how the U.S. more or less avoided a similar fate, because its leaders were not limited to fighters, but included scholars who knew history and philosophy and rhetoric, who could write and persuade and compromise. We got to honor the contributions of the slaves who were back on the plantations doing all the work so that the Washingtons and Jeffersons and Madisons were free to devote themselves to thinking about how the new country could be peacefully governed. Once again, we got to cut across subjects and ideas and uncover new meaning and new insights.

Not long after, we learned about labor uprisings in Uruguay in the late 1800s. Much of what we read sounded very similar to the history of the labor movement in the United States. Again, we realized how universal many of these issues are, and how connected people can be across borders. We learned that the workers in Uruguay felt a deep relation to labor protestors in the United States, and organized annual events to honor the "mártires (martyrs) de Chicago" who were executed after the Haymarket Affair. We learned that the history of struggle for an 8-hour workday was international, and that the U.S. was just one player, one partner, in a shared history. I found myself reflecting not just on the history, but on how I learned history, how I teach history, and how I want my boys and my students to study history. I've always given lip service to the importance of studying U.S. history in the context of the wider world, but it took this venture to this little corner of the wider world for me to really understand how very connected our histories actually are. My teaching from here on out will reflect that connection in a more meaningful way, I am certain.

Besides reading, drawing, and venturing out on field trips, our study of Uruguayan history has included identifying places in Uruguay named for the people and events we've learned about. From our first days in Montevideo, I noted how very many of the streets were named for people or dates. And as we've traveled to other areas, we've noticed how so many of these names are repeated in every little town or village we come to. One obvious explanation for this is the same explanation we hear for so many differences we notice: "It's a small country." It's a small country, so everyone knows everybody else. It's a small country, with not much need for professional childcare, because everyone has an available family member nearby.  It's a small country, so the president can continue his medical practice while in office. And so on. Well, it would be easy to say that it's a small country, with only so many heroes and important dates to go around, so each place uses the same ones over and over and over to name their streets, plazas, and parks. 

But there's more to it than that. From the perspective of the history book that we read, Uruguayan heroes were pretty much manufactured through intentional campaigns to create a shared culture among the distinct groups that found themselves lumped together into one nation. Uruguay was carved out of the "Banda Oriental" in a deal between Argentina and Brazil, brokered by England, which was trying to protect its trading rights. Boundaries were drawn and indigenous gauchos in the campo learned that they were now countrymen with the rich Italian comerciantes in Montevideo. Descendants of African slaves were citizens just like new immigrants from Holland or France. Those who had fought on the side of the Portuguese, or the Spanish, or the revolutionaries from Buenos Aires, found themselves neighbors with equal stakes in the new nation. Someone realized that what was needed to draw these people together was a common culture, even if that culture had to be created for them. So statues were erected to whoever might qualify as a hero, preferably without riling one side or another. Storytellers and writers were called upon to breathe new life into old accounts of brave deeds. Contests were held to create poetry honoring the "fatherland." Magnificent works of art, like the one we viewed on Friday, were painted and sculpted to depict historic events not as they actually happened, but as a common cultural memory might envision them. Although no one has told me for sure, my guess is that it was at this time and for this reason that so many places all over the country were given names for military leaders like Artigas, Rivera, and Lavalleja, and for important dates like July 18, the anniversary of the writing of the Constitution. But also we have found places named for education reformers, for artists, poets, musicians, journalists, physicians; for indigenous leaders and former slaves and immigrants. More recently, the cultural net has cast itself even wider, and heroes from farther afield have been honored in names like Parque Roosevelt and Rambla Gandhi. There's someone for everyone to identify with, a reason for everyone, even a Yankee from Georgia, to feel included.

While the idea of manufacturing a common culture seems odd and uncomfortably disingenuous to me, I'm seeing its value in a society such as this one, where so many people with so little in common had to work out their differences and function as one. I find myself wondering if similar efforts were made in other parts of the world, for instance in the Balkan States, or in Middle Eastern countries, where lines drawn on a map resulted in nations made up of people with no common history or any investment in each other's traditions. I'm wondering if these efforts have been part of what led to Uruguay, once the fighting stopped, to rather quickly becoming one of only a handful of nations that are rated as free from conflict.

These are questions for another time, but questions that will stay with me and color the way I look at the history of my own country and of others in the future. There is much more Uruguayan history to learn, because as it turns out, our book only brought us to the beginning of the twentieth century. I am itching to dive into the more recent history, the dictatorship of 1973 - 1985, the rise of socialism, the life of President Mujica, who just left office. I don't know that we'll get to any of that before we leave here in just a few weeks. But I am appreciating how what we've studied so far has given me a new perspective, and for how much all of us are learning here in this fascinating place.