American Borders Americanas Summary

In Guillermo Verdecchia’s play, American Borders/Fronteras Americanas, he talks about the postcolonial effect on the world. Verdecchia talks about the use of lenses to see the different view points of society. For example, in the play he says, “I check into the Hotel de Don Tito, listed on page 302 of your Fodor’s as a moderate, small hotel with six suites, eight twins, eight singles, bar, homey atmosphere, and it’s located on one of the main streets in Santiago on Huérfanos at Huérfanos 578” (38-39). He shows how his Fodor, a well known and renounced travel guide, talks about how homey and ‘safe’ Hotel Don Tito is. However, in reality, this so called in depth perception of a culture and country by a travel magazine is not as important or relevant as how it is seen to be first hand.
Such as when Verdecchia states, “There, three stories below , directly in front of the moderate and homey Hotel de Don Tito, there on the road, directly below my window, there a man in a suit, his shirt soaked an impossible red, lies writhing as an enormous crowd gathers.
I reach for my camera and begin to take photographs”(38-39). As he is taking the pictures of the man that is dying he sees the police just stand there and not help him. He begins to change his lenses and cameras. “I take photographs with a 135 mm. telephoto and then change lenses […]. I take photographs with a Pentax MX and a 35 mm. F 2.8 lens. […] I take photographs, 64 ASA Kodachromes […]” (38-39). He goes from a high-tech DSLR to a low profile vintage SLR. By doing so he shows the different perspectives that people may have on a different culture. For example the high end DSLR represents the perspective of the Global North, for they can afford the higher end camera. As you move down lower and lower the cameras begin to change, they become cheaper and cheaper because those are the ones poorer people can afford, the simple SLR or plastic film
camera. Therefore, the more he changes lenses the more he sees through the perspective of that certain group in the Chilean society. However, nowhere is this more apparent than in Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, A Small Place. For example, in the novel Kincaid shows the ‘lens’ of the tourist which is highly influenced by the Global North to think that such exotic countries are well off, when in reality there is more to see than what their Fodor magazine depicts. While the ‘lens’ of the natives, which has been oppressed by the government, is molded to see their lives in Antigua as nothing more than a day to day ‘job’ for they work to please the tourist. Because Kincaid shows the different perspectives between the ‘lens’ of the tourists and that of the natives, he not only defines but also tears down the border between the Global hemispheric countries to show the lack in resources that these so called ‘exotic’ countries face rather than being perceived as a ‘perfect paradise.’ The ‘other,’ or the Global South is perceived by the Global North as nothing more than uneducated indigenous people. The Global North’s population is made to perceive these indigenous beasts as exotics. They then travel out to these sought out places to experience this so called exotic culture. Yet, the government oppresses its people to fit the role of the ‘exotic native’ in which the travel brochures and travel ads perceive them as. Because of these Globalized ideas of countries, tourists do not fully receive the real cultural experience. The perspective people have on the country or culture only revolves around a certain, money making, area. Therefore, this picture they have of a certain country may only be nothing more than a mask to truly cover the oppression of a corrupt govenment. Such as in A Small Place tourism is made to seem as a good revenue for the countries’ economy. However, this so called revenue comes at the price of not the government, but the countries natives. Natives are exploited and used as attention grabbers for monetary governmental gain. Kincaid emphasizes on the effects of post colonialism. It has brought no government provided resources and an economy based on tourism which highly affects the natives of Antigua. The Antiguan natives were deprived of education because their egocentric government believed more in self gain, rather than country wide needed resources.