Latin America has a long stratified history of human rights violations, from the formation of this new world through Spanish colonization to the most recent military dictatorships of the last century. It seems as if the entire history of this continent are different layers of bloodshed.
Violence that one might think is a thing of the past, yet continues to recur today, is the physical and psychological abuse suffered by migrants, women, indigenous peoples, peasants, Afro-descendant peoples, and more generally by the marginalized, the dispossessed, and those excluded from economic and political power.
Rebelling is impossible; the founding structure of Latin American society hinges on the normalization of abuse. Acts of violence, forced disappearances, massacres, and rapes become daily occurrences on news channels, radio, public discourse, and social media, as do the fear of being victims and the resulting need to avoid the worst for oneself and one’s loved ones. A web of structural paranoia prevents any kind of social change.
The environment is also part of the sedimentation of violence and abuse in Latin America: the extraction of minerals by multinationals, the landed production of fruit, and the pollution of water resources contribute to the contamination of an environment that becomes toxic.
