0 The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey of Self-discovery 02br 02br 00“The Motorcycle Diaries”, directed by Walter Salles, is a film based in a true-life story that had a profound impact on revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna and his friend Alberto Granado. During the 1950’s, Ernesto Guevara, a medical student, and Alberto Granado, a biochemist student, decided to take a motorcycle trip through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Throughout the trip, Ernesto and Alberto discovered the reality of a land filled with suffering, oppression, and injustice affecting its people. Understanding these issues are essential to understanding the challenges that every Latino has to experience at some point in his or her life. Wrestling with these issues is what drove Ernesto and Alberto to a journey of self-discovery. What does self-discovery means? The word self-discovery means a new way of looking at life. Alberto and Ernesto gained a face-to-face experience with social classes, and exploitation that led them on a journey of self-discovery. 02br 02br 00Alberto and Ernesto learned the differences between social classes in their journey across South America. In many Latin American countries, social class differences among their residents are very pronounced expressed in many ways. But the main differences between these classes are lifestyle, customs, and working conditions. In “The Motorcycle Diaries”, Ernesto and Alberto discovered that poverty is a day-to-day problem affecting lower class people—especially indigenous Incas, farmworkers, and mineworkers all over Latin America. In contrast, they found out that the wealthy few —capitalists—have a higher quality of life. It is a clear example between the upper class lifestyle of Chichina's family and the indigenous people in Peru. Ernesto and Alberto stayed for three weeks at San Pablo, a leper colony in Peru, where hierarchy is based on health and position. In this leper colony, the river plays an important role separating treated patients—sick people—from doctors and nuns —healthy people. However, their desperate need for survival for themselves and their families leaves low class people with no other choice but to be exploitation. 02br 02br 00In addition to the differences between social classes, Ernesto and Alberto faced forms of exploitation affecting people at every place they stop. Ernesto and Alberto encounter desperate indigenous people being displaced from their own land by capitalists. They visited Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile. It was run by a U.S. mining company and viewed by Ernesto as a symbol of exploitation. In addition, Ernesto and Alberto discovered the way companies exploited poor people. In the same way, “The Plum Plum Pickers”, written by Jorge Soto, emphasizes the way the gringo—the oppressor—exploited farm workers who labored in the fields. They have no rights. Moreover, farmworkers do not ***(I don’t know how to change this sentence) justice because they are afraid that they will be fired for exercising their rights. Similarly, in “The Organizer Tale”, Cesar Chavez addresses the fact of “how people working the roses are sick and tired of being treated and he was willing to ‘go the limit’”(294). However, exploited people are organized so that they can help each other. In addition, they are able to sacrifice themselves for their families. 02br 02br 00Along with their experience of exploitation affecting people at every place they stop, Ernesto and Alberto experienced a journey of self-discovery. According to Kenneth Turan, L.A times writer, “like riders everywhere, Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado were changed by their bike experience, by the eight months they spent in...South America, but not in the way they expected”(1). The farther they went the more they started to understand the people’s reality. Throughout their journey of self-discovery, Ernesto and Alberto started to change their way of thinking of the world. Their first-hand experiences and their encounter with people, from the very wealthy(Should I said very wealthy or wealthier??) to the exploited mineworkers, from indigenous people in Cuzco to leper patients at San Pablo affected the way Ernesto and Alberto saw themselves. For example, Ernesto leaves his birthday party and takes a night swim across the river to the other side, to his patients in the leper’s colony. 02br 02br 00The relatively close proximity of people from different social classes and the exploitation affecting the poor people, led Ernesto and Alberto on a journey of self-discovery. They analyzed suffering and injustice that were unknown for them. But the most important, Ernesto and Alberto discovered a continent’s reality that changed their lives. 0-
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